Re: Software patents and Debian
Adam Borowski wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 21, 2006 at 08:14:04AM +0200, Arnoud Engelfriet wrote:
> > Of course. The German Supreme Court however has the same
> > interpretation of "software as such" as the European Patent Office.
>
> This means that they completely disrespect Article 52 [1]. However, their
> intepretation is a minority.
The German Supreme Court is the final instance for interpreting
patent law in Germany. So at least they're a powerful minority.
I'm not going to redo the whole debate here; I just tried to
explain why someone called Germany a rogue country even though
its patent law is an almost-literal copy of the EPC.
> After the last attempt to legislate a "Common Position" failed (July 2005),
> there is no EU-wide law that would enforce software patents, although
> particular member countries are free to enact such laws. In other words,
> interpretation differs on a country-by-country base. Unless I'm missing
> something, it's only Germany and the UK who put EPO over the EPC.
There's very little case law in other countries. The UK and Germany
are where you'd go to litigate a European patent(*).
> Also, there is no such thing as an "European patent".
Your explanation is correct, however we can still call them
'European patents', because EPC article 2(1) says:
"Patents granted by virtue of this Convention shall be
called European patents."
Arnoud
--
Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch & European patent attorney - Speaking only for myself
Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/
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