BLOG@IP::JUR

 

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If you follow the EPO guidelines of 1978, that kind of patent should not even been granted.

Otherwise, claims of B1version are here:

http://gauss.ffii.org/PatentView/EP249293-B1

claims of B2 version are here:

http://gauss.ffii.org/PatentView/EP249293-B2

Otherwise, B1 and B2 are valid until 2014. Correct me if I am wrong.
 
 

 

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The maximum term of such a patent is filing date (of the entire patent application, not the publication date of any of the patent documents relating to the application) plus 20 years, i.e. up to June 2007 in this case.

In some of the "Designated Countries" the patent might perhaps have lapsed earlier, e.g. in case of non-payment of renewal fees (on a country-by-country basis in DE, FR, GB, IT and/or SE, the "Designated States" of this European Patent).

If anybody wants to know as to whether or not there are any legal effects of this patent today, it would be necessary to check the respective *national* patent registers of these "Designated States" one by one.

And, well, the "Guidelines for Examination in the European Patent Office" are non-binding internal compilations of written descriptions current Official practise in order to facilitate a unified mode of practice over all of the employees of the EPO. They are not to be counted as a source of law.

Hence, irrespective of what was the gist of the 1978 edition of these guidelines, in this context it does not matter in any relevant sense because over the time the competent Boards of Appeal have adopted different views with regard to the patentability of CIIs.
 
 

 

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A context menu might not have been obvious at the time - but if this patent is still valid today, that would be silly. Even with the 'narrower' claims of B2, it's not obvious whether the menu that pops up when you right-click your Windows Desktop is covered under this patent.

Even if today this patent would be considered invalid, it can still be harmful: it can be used to intimidate small businesses that cannot afford the legal battle of defending against this patent, regardless of the outcome.
 
 

 

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Actually, is there any easy way of getting the plaintext form of the claims as granted?

Esp@cenet doesn't seem to provide them (only in PDF form). I'd guess that's the reason this Gauss thing doesn't show the claims as granted.
 
 

 

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For information on the patent look at: http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=EP0249293&F=0

choose Inpadoc family to view national the patents. The Uk patent seems to have lapsed.

(www.dkpto.dk/weblog)
 
 

 

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@zoobab: actually, the pages you link to all show the A1 version of the claims, as the EPO (by way of esp@cenet, like everyone else, as far as I can see) does not provide a plaintext version of the amended claims.

The FFII has tried to use OCR the B2 claims, but so far it seems this is not technically feasible in this context. The real solution of course would be for esp@cenet to provide this information in a more convenient format.

The B2 version is supposed to replace the previous ones.

At least gauss adds a (small) disclaimer...
 
 

 

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To follow-up, since it looks like the problem is with esp@cenet, I left a message on the esp@cenet support forums ( http://forum.espacenet.com/viewtopic.php?t=385 ). They don't seem to reply anymore for some reason...