[ILUG] Fwd: Mary Harney's Answer on Software Patents

[Dermot McGahon]

On Fri, 21 May 2004 06:26:06 -0700, Justin Mason <jm at jmason.org> wrote:

> See Ciaran O'Riordan's mail regarding the two key loopholes: namely, the
> use of the terms "as such" and "technical effects".   The FFII website,  
> in last September's news entries, has more details.

Their interpretation. Others are possible, and imho, more likely.

> Unfortunately, it does look like those two textual loopholes will be used
> to derail any questioner who isn't familiar with the intricate details of
> the issue, and they really do obfuscate the issue quite effectively :(

I'm not sure that they do. We're guessing on interpretation.

The key phrase (if we're picking phrases, instead of reading whole
context as we should, and as any judge worth his salt would), to my
mind is:

  "technical effects beyond the normal physical interactions between
   a program and the computers, network ..."

My interpretation of this is that _all_ standard software as we would
think of it is unpatentable. Only software which forms part of a
larger novel system would be patentable under this interpretation.

This interpretation may well be wrong :) but it's sincere and may be
what was intended by those drafting.

I would worry about the patents office being the sole arbiter here
though. I would have much less concern if this were legislation
to be interpreted by the judiciary.

>> In  addition,  the  text  as agreed makes it explicit that a computer  
>> program as such  cannot  constitute  a  patentable invention, and that 
>> inventions involving computer programs,  whether  expressed as source  
>> code,object code or any other form, which implement business,  
>> mathematical orother methods and do not produce any technical effects  
>> beyond the normalphysical interactions between a program and  the   
>> computer, network orother programmable apparatus in which it is run  
>> shall not be patentable.


Dermot.
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