From R. J. Hart
In your patents column on 9 May
(This Week, p 9) you state that UNION, a
committee of 700 European industrial property lawyers, “wants the European
Patent Office to rule that a computer program cannot be patented because it is
already protected by copyright”.
I attended the UNION Round Table on Patenting of Computer Software in Munich
on 9/10 December at the EPO and I have seen the press release provided by UNION.
It states: “The EPO was requested to update its Examination Guidelines and to
consider defining the term `computer programs as such’ in a new implementing
Rule as `source and/or object code of the computer program’ which is not sought
to be patented and which is anyway protected by copyright.
What UNION really wanted was to urge the EPO to clarify the current practice
and to make it clear that patents can be and are granted by the EPO for software
inventions.
Liverpool
