Re: Fwd: swpat reply from Liz Lynne MEP (Lib Dem)

First time to my knowledge that a LibDem MEP has cited the party policy.

>  The LibDems are in 
> favour of increased legal certainty in the EU; a balance needs to be 
> struck between the needs of small business on the one hand, to protect 
> their inventions -

but she still doesn't understand why the policy doc says what it says.
Small software businesses want protection *from* patents, not protection
*by* patents.

And she hasn't a clue...

>   Specifically, the UK Liberal Democrats 
> supported an amendment to the definition, so that "In order to be 
> patentable, a computer-implemented invention must be susceptible of 
> industrial application and new and involve an inventive step.  In order 
> to involve an inventive step, a computer-implemented invention must make 
> a technical contribution".
> 

Both the buzzwords "technical" and "industrial" are there --- the very
ones Liz Lynne and her colleagues did not want to be defined.

> .  The Council has specifically excluded 
> a computer program, as such, from constituting a patentable invention. 
> It has also accepted the Parliament's amendment (above) as the Condition 
> of Patentablity.

Of course it has --- on the condition that patent lawyers can define the
key words how they like.

Alex
-- 
Alex Macfie, Taipei, Taiwan ROC              email <[email protected]>
Tel: +886 955 857477                        <http://www.cgce.net/>
STOP SOFTWARE PATENTS IN EUROPE           <http://swpat.ffii.org/>