From phm@A2E.DE Sat Aug 19 09:44:24 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 14381 invoked from network); 19 Aug 2000 16:44:24 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m2.onelist.org with QMQP; 19 Aug 2000 16:44:24 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO wtao97.oas.a2e.de) (62.154.243.66) by mta1 with SMTP; 19 Aug 2000 16:44:23 -0000 Received: from localhost by wtao97.oas.a2e.de via sendmail with esmtp id for ; Sat, 19 Aug 2000 16:41:04 +0200 (CEST) (Smail-3.2 1996-Jul-4 #1 built 2000-Mar-31) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2000 16:41:04 +0200 (CEST) X-Sender: phm@wtao97.oas.a2e.de To: lojban@egroups.com Subject: fatal ambiguity in European Patent Convention In-Reply-To: <28.99b7047.26d00084@aol.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: PILCH Hartmut Article 52 of the European Patent Convention limits the scope of objects that can be patented in Europe. Unfortunately, ambiguous relative clauses in the text have helped the European Patent Office in extending the scope and depleting the text of meaning. The text reads: << Art 52 - Patentable Inventions European patents shall be granted for any inventions which are susceptible of industrial application, which are new and which involve an inventive step. (2) The following in particular shall not be regarded as inventions within the meaning of paragraph 1: ... [ computer programs ] >> According to the more restrictive interpretation which I favor, this is to be interpreted as: The word group in (1) "inventions which are ... step" defines a new concept, that which the title calls "patentable inventions" and which the word group in (2) "inventions within the meaning of (1)" also refers to. An "invention" in the context of patent law thus is one of the "inventions which are ..". Another interpretation would say that (1) does not define any concept of "invention" and that only (2) defines what an "invention" is, but does so not by supplying an abstract definition but only by supplying a list of exceptions, from which the courts must infer an abstract definition. Which they did: they claimed that the unerlying criterion was "technicity", and then they created a caselaw which softened the meaning of "technicity" so that gradually also computer programs were admitted. If the text had been logically clear enough to enforce the first interpretation (which I believe to be historically true), the technicity reasoning could not have crept in, but the courts would have to be forced to look for the underlying criteria within the concepts of (1), which contain the requirement for "susceptible of industrial application", and they would have had to explain "industrial application" in a way that is consistent with the list of exceptions. How would the two versions have read in Lojban? Is it a simple poi/noi difference? -phm