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Thursday, January 29, 2004

Coming SPLT Deliberations in 2004.

On May 10 - 14, 2004, the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) will gather in Geneva for the tenth session to continue deliberations on a Substantive Patent Law Treaty (SPLT). A number of

relevant documents are available on the

WIPO website. The present

revised version of the draft Substantive Patent Law Treaty takes into account the views expressed in the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents at its

ninth session which was held from May 12 to 16, 2003.

Concerning Articles 11 to 16 of the recent SPLT draft version, since no discussion was held on these provisions at the ninth session of the SCP, the text of the draft SPLT contained in

document SCP/9/2 is kept substantially unchanged. This is also relevant for Article 12 defining material conditions of patentability. In particular, it is still to be determined whether "Subject matter eligible for protection shall include products and processes which can be made and used in any field of activity" or "Subject matter eligible for protection shall include products and processes, in all fields of technology, which can be made and used in any field of activity" shall apply. The clause "in all fields of technology" might well make a difference concerning business methods and computer-implemented inventions. Within this context,

Document SCP/8/8 "Summary of the Chair" of the

eigth Session (November 25 - 29, 2002) reads: "[...] A couple of interventions suggested that the presence or absence of the word 'technical' went beyond the issue of patentable subject matter. On the other hand, it was recognized that the term 'technical' was a fundamental issue for a number of delegations. It was agreed that the discussion concerning the term “technical” in Rules 4 and 5 should be postponed until the SCP reached a conclusion regarding patentable subject matter under draft Article 12(1). [...] "

However, the fate of the SPLT might well be dim. There are rumours that currently in particular the US are not very eager to push this project ahead. Ok, we shall wait and see.

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