[DMCA-Activists] Re: [Patents] India Reverses Policy on Software Patents

[Seth Johnson]

PILCH Hartmut wrote:
> 
> > India clarifies its practice!  :-)
> 
> What the journos write there is just the bullshit that comes from the 
> ministry.
> 
> India clarified nothing.  They just took out a phrase from an ordinance
> that would have further legitimated what the Indian Patent Office is already
> doing: granting patents on software that is "embedded" in -- you guess
> it -- general-purpose office and network computers.


:-)

While the article says the Controller General is non-committal
about patents granted prior to the Ordinance, India's act of
rejecting the attempt to legitimize software patents is
represented without the same abject ignorance of what "technical
effects" glosses over, that we've found in the EU.

The article says the Indian Patent Office is likely to actually
reverse patents issued while the Ordinance was in effect and
recognizes the legal ambiguity which had existed under which "150
patents on 'technical effects of software'" were issued according
to lenient interpretation of the law.

Except that corrupt language is still being used and we don't
actually know what the patent establishment in India will do at
this point, this treatment of the subject is more forthright and
clear than we've seen in the EU; in particular though it uses the
terminology, we don't see it led astray in the "ya gotta patent
innovation" via "technical effects" manner to which the EU is so
susceptible.

While it lets it seem as if language was added to clarify the
law, the article says legal experts could challenge
already-granted "software-related patents" in the courts.  The
article also presents the "pure position" quite plainly, as a
counter argument, along with the argument that software patents
would only benefit multinationals.

It's clearly a different situation, one in which India has shown
some semblance of reason at an early stage of the issue in their
country.  If they actually conduct proceedings about the subject,
it doesn't appear they would likely handle them the same way the
EU handled the public consultation on the CII Directive.  And
while it would clearly be best to have assurances in the law,
having a forthright addressing of the issue, in which the issue
is actually considered on its merits, is really the key to
establishing what it means to exclude software from
patentability.

They also clearly benefited from the results of organizing in the
EU.


Seth


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