Software and Patents in Europe

The computer program exclusion from Article 52 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) proved impossible to uphold as industry moved over to digital technology, and the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Organisation (EPO) felt emboldened to circumvent the EPC in Vicom by creating the legal fiction of 'technical effect'. This 'engineer's solution' emphasised that protection should be available for a device, a situation which has led to software and business methods being protected throughout Europe when the form of application, rather than the substance, is acceptable. Since the Article 52 exclusion has effectively vanished, this 2007 text examines what makes examination of software invention difficult and what leads to such energetic opposition to protecting inventive activity in the software field. Leith advocates a more programming-centric approach, which recognises that software examination requires different strategies from that of other technical fields.

ISBN 0521868394   Volumes 1 ISBN13 9780521868396 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 486 Publisher Cambridge University Press   Published in Cambridge Imprint Cambridge University Press   Series ISSN 9 Format Hardback   Series title Cambridge Intellectual Property and Information Law Publication date 18 Oct 2007   Height (mm) 228 Library of Congress KJC   Width (mm) 152 DEWEY 346.240486   Spine width (mm) 19 DEWEY edition DC22   Academic level Professional / Scholarly Pages 212

1		Software as machine		6
2		Software as software		39
3		Policy arguments		69
4		Software patent examination		102
5		Holding the line: algorithms, business methods and other computing ogres		135
6		The third way: between patent and copyright?		156
7		Conclusion: dealing with and harmonising 'radical' technologies		182

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