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BLOG@IP::JURPatent Attorney Axel H Horns' Blog on Intellectual Property Law.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007Final IP Symposium of The German EU Presidency: "The Future of the Patent Jurisdiction in Europe".During June 25-26, 2007, and under the umbrella of the German EU Presidency, the German Federal Patents Court (Bundespatentgericht) had hosted a symposium under the title"The Future of the Patent Jurisdiction in Europe"It was essentially a closed-shop conference but press and at least one FFII member had been admitted; see the report of Ms Monika Ermert on Heise's Newsticker [in German only, sorry]. A set of notes in English has been provided by some FFII observer. Allegedly Mr. Raimund Lutz, President of the Bundespatentgericht, has said on closing of the conference and in view of the various approaches of reforming the patent system in Europe:"[...] I note that some people are losing interest in doing so. [...]"Technorati Tags:  Patents
Computer-Implemented Inventions: Where Do We Stand In The Debate On "Software Patents"?Aconference organised by the European Patent Office and to be held on July 05, 2007, under the title "Computer-implemented inventions: where do we stand in the debate on 'software patents'?"fuels speculations about this matter soon to re-appear on the political agenda. Mr Joff Wild of IAM writes in his blog:"[...] Last week I mentioned a lunch I had with someone close to the EPO who was talking about aOr, will it be merely an interim summary and bemoaning of the  widening rift between the practice of the EPO, on the one hand, and national case law, on the other? Let's wait and see.Technorati Tags: Patents
Next Sunday Ms Brimelow Will Take Office as President Of EPO: "It Will Be A Turbulent Time".From aninterview with Ms Brimelow on Managing Intellectual Property MIP (reg. req'd): "[...] The third priority for Brimelow is managing the EPO as businesses and individuals are applying for more patents than ever before. She refers to the problem of ever-increasing demand for patents as a 'global warming' of the IP system and says it will be a 'turbulent time'.Surely the style of governance to be performed by Ms Brimelow might well be somewhat different from that of the outgoing President, Mr. Pompidou, I guess. Her usage of the language of a "global warming of the IP system" appears be well-suited to support speculations that Ms Brimelow might, amongst many others, be supporting a future policy of "fewer, but better" patents or at least something like that. In the interview Ms Brimelow also asserts that one of her first priorities on taking up the presidency will be to improve relations between managers and examiners. Furthermore, also the question as to how the EPO can work effectively with national offices will be in the focus during her term of office.I can only wish her good luck for those difficult tasks. Technorati Tags: Patents
Wednesday, June 20, 2007Mr. Rolf Claessen Presents New Tool For Monitoring EPO Patent Data.Recent issue 02/2007 ofEPO Patent Information News disseminated by EPO brings an article about one of Dr. Rolf Claessen's recent projects:"[...] The term 'Web 2.0 is rapidly becoming a standard expression to describe the phenomenon where internet users take an active role in adding and maintaining information on the internet. Wikipedia is perhaps the best example of a Web 2.0 internet site.Well, I don't think that this tool really belongs to that what the buzzword "Web 2.0" means because of it lacks something like a community but nevertheless I think that this project shows the beta stage of some very promising web application for monitoring patent data by means of RSS feeds. It is definitively worth to have a try. Technorati Tags: Patents
Monday, June 18, 2007U.S.: Democratic Presidential Candidate John Edwards Promising to "Remove" Drug Patents.During electoral campaigns politicians love to make popular, if not populist pledges to their electorate. The upcoming campaigns for the U.S. presidential election in 2008 appear to be no exception:"[...] DETROIT - Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards wants to reduce the cost of U.S. health care by removing patents for breakthrough drugs and requiring health insurance companies to spend at least 85 percent of their premiums on patient care. [...]"Read more ...I do not have any idea as to whether such plan just to "remove" some patents by federal legislation would go well with the provisions of the U.S. constitution. In Germany, the title given to the patent owner by granting a patent is protected by the German constitution very much like property from which the owner can be evicted only under very limited circumstances. Technorati Tags: Patents
EPO has Published Annual Report 2006: New Record in Filing Numbers."[...] The number of patent applications received by the European Patent Office reached 207 300 in 2006, the EPO announced today. The figure marks a new record and a 5% increase on the previous year's total of 197 400 applications.Read more ...The EPO Annual Report 2006 is available on-line.Technorati Tags: Patents
NEW: Online Access to CTM Files."Online access to CTM file is the new web tool providing access to CTM file documents online free of charge. CTM files generally contain all correspondence exchanged between the OHIM and the CTM owner and/or its representative.Read more ...Technorati Tags:  OHIM
Sunday, June 17, 2007German EU Presidency on Future Patent Politics.Inmy earlier posting I had reported about EU Council Document 8566/07 devising a questionnaire related to the Commission Communication on enhancing the patent system in Europe and addressed to the Working Party on Intellectual Property (Patents). Now, the results have been published with Document 10710/07:"[...] 1. On 4 April 2007, following the conclusions adopted by the Competitiveness Council on 4 December 2006 and the European Council on 8-9 March 2007, the Commission presented a Communication on enhancing the patent system in Europe (doc. 8302/07).There seems, however, to be no clear position concerning the EU Community Patent: "5. Several delegations were in favour of reopening the discussion on the Community Patent in the light of certain issues mentioned in the Communication, particularly with regard to simplifying the language regime. Some Member States expressed openness toward diverging from the approach contained in the 2003 Common Political Approach and rejected by European business associations (translation of claims into all official languages), with some Member States referring to the London Protocol as an appropriate model for the Community Patent. The delegations welcomed the Commission's initiative to continue - together with the Member States - its efforts to find effective solutions that would lead to a considerable reduction in translation costs."Nothing appears to be really new. Concerning litigation, a very few core principles appear to be unanimously supported by the EU Member States: "6. As to the Commission's compromise approach to the establishment of a single patent judiciary, no delegation questioned the general principles that, once established, any effective litigation system would have to be decentralised at first instance, have a centralised appeal court and make use of technical expertise in the proceedings. However, there was a widespread feeling that more clarity was needed with regard to the factual details underlying these general principles, which might otherwise be subject to varying interpretation and understanding among the Member States, and that without a common understanding, no true consensus could be achieved. [...]"Technorati Tags: Patents
Mr Wim Van der Eijk, EPO: "Patents are granted too easily".Mr Cillian Donnellyon EU Reporter:"[...] 'Patents are granted too easily', suggested Wim Van der Eijk, Principal Director of the International Legal Affairs and Patent Law Department at the European patent Office (EPO). 'We need to have a more critical look, and steer policy in the direction of less, but stronger patents'. [...]"Did Mr Van der Eijk speak on behalf of the EPO or did he merely express his private opinion? Mr Van der Eijk is contributor to the STOA Workshop on Policy Options for the Improvement of the European Patent System. Following a final presentation to the European Parliament, the report issued by the Scientific and Technical Options Assessment (STOA) group will be 'available soon' in its completed form, EU Reporter says.Technorati Tags: Patents
Friday, June 15, 2007Breakthrough On WIPO Development Agenda?"[...] A World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) committee negotiating proposals this week for a stronger development focus at WIPO appeared to be on track to finishing work by meeting's end Friday, though some hurdles remained. At press time, breakthrough agreements had been reached on contentious issues such as open collaborative projects, intellectual property protection, and development impact assessments. [...]"Read more on IP Watch.Technorati Tags: Intellectual Property
G8 Heiligendamm Summit on IPR.From theG8 Heiligendamm Summit Declaration (June 07, 2007):"[...] Intellectual Property Protection as the Backbone of InnovationAnd further: "[...] A New Dialogue on Innovation and Intellectual Property ProtectionThe Declaration also refers to the "Heiligendamm Process" (p.36-37), which was announced at the Summit as a dialogue between G8 and the important emerging economies (Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa). The G8 Justice and Home Affairs Ministers also met in Munich on May 23-25, 2007. Their Concluding Declaration recognised that product counterfeiting and piracy damage the innovative capacity of national economies. See the statement of the UK-IPO.Technorati Tags: Intellectual Property
Peer-to-Patent went Live."We are proud to announce that the Peer-to-Patent system is now live!"Read more ...Technorati Tags: Patents
EPO Board Of Appeal Clarifies Various Legal Issues - UK Lord Justice Jacob Heavily Criticised.The European Patent Office has publishedDecision T 0154/04 - 3.5.01 of the Boards of Appeal concerning European Patent application 94912949. The application is directed to a method of estimating product distribution, at it appears to be clear already prima facie that there might be some difficulties in view of the patentability of such invention over the legal requirements set forth in the EPC. But what makes this Decision really interesting is not only a thorough discussion of the merits of the individual case but still more the scrutiny with which the Board under the Chair of Mr Steinbrenner has answered some more general questions in the context of the debate on the limits of patentability.One interesting point might be read as an answer to UK judges proposing to raise the question concerning the limits of patentability to the Enlarged Board of Appeal in view of allegedly differing case law issued by various Boards over the years:"[...] The decisions of the EPO Boards of Appeal are mutually contradictory. To say that is not to criticise anyone. On the contrary the Boards of Appeal have each done what they think is right in law - as befits tribunals exercising a judicial function. But surely the time has come for matters to be clarified by an Enlarged Board of Appeal. Under Art.112(1)(b) of the EPC the President of the EPO has the power to refer a point of law to an Enlarged Board where two Boards of Appeal have given different decisions on that question. That is now clearly the position. There are indeed at least four differing points of view. We have no power to refer any question and must reach our decision now independently of what any Enlarged Board might decide if and when there is a reference. Nonetheless we have ventured to formulate questions which might be asked of an Enlarged Board in the hope of encouraging a reference. We add that the Comptroller supports us in this course. [...]"The answer given by the Board of Appeal reads as follows: "[...] A decision deviating from an opinion given in another decision of a board of appeal, a diverging opinion expressed in decisions of different boards, or a deviation from some national jurisprudence - for example, from the UK case law of the Court of Appeal to which the appellant referred in support of its case - are not per se valid reasons for referral (see also Article 15 RBPA). Hence, the legal system of the European Patent Convention gives room for evolution of the jurisprudence (which is thus not "case law" in the strict Anglo-Saxon meaning of the term) and leaves it to the discretion of the boards whether to give reasons in any decision deviating from other decisions or to refer a point of law to the Enlarged Board. The President of the European Patent Office may intervene under Article 112(1)(b) EPC, in particular if the legal situation becomes unclear for first instance proceedings. [...]"And, vice versa, there will be limited reception of national case law by the Board of Appeal: "[...] In the interest of the harmonisation of national and international rules of law, the boards of appeal will take into consideration decisions and opinions given by national courts in interpreting the law (see G 5/83 - Second medical indication/EISAI (OJ EPO 1985, 64), Reasons No. 6). Nevertheless, in the proceedings before the European Patent Office, such considerations do not exonerate a board of appeal from its duty as an independent judicial body to interpret and apply the European Patent Convention and to decide in last instance in patent granting matters. In addition, despite harmonised legal regulations it is not self-evident that their interpretation is also harmonised among different national courts, let alone courts of different contracting states, so that the boards of appeal would be at a loss as to which interpretation to follow if they did not exercise their own independent judgement. [...]"A doctrine providing a patentability test based on seven principles for inventions comprising non-technical features is stated as follows: "[...] The constant jurisprudence of the boards of appeal as far as it is relevant to the present case may be summarised succinctly in the following principles:UK Lord Justice Jacob is heavily criticised in view of his arguing in the recent Aerotel/Macrossan judgement:"[...] These views [of the EPO Boards of Appeal] are entirely consistent with the legal concept of 'invention' applied by the Board in the context of Article 52(1) to (3) EPC, which should not be mixed up with the layman's ordinary understanding of invention as a novel, and often also inventive contribution to the known art. Using these two very different concepts of invention in one breath would be a legal fallacy.Indeed, after the failure of the EU Draft Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions, which would have harmonised these matters, there appears to be a widening rift between the Decisions of the EPO Boards of Appeal, on the one hand, and of the Case Law of the UK Courts, on the other. Technorati Tags: Patents
Thursday, June 14, 2007EPC2000 Still Not Ratified By All Member States.Cyprus, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, Portugal, Sweden and Turkeystill have not yet ratified the EPC2000. They have time up to December 13, 2007, at the latest. EPC Member States that have not ratified or acceded to the revised text of the EPC2000 Convention by that date will cease to be parties to this Convention as from that time in accordance with Article 172 (4) EPC. Germany's ratification proceedings are going according to plan as far as I can say.Technorati Tags: EPC2000
Norway To Join EPO.From theEPO website:"Norway is set to become the 33rd member of the European Patent Organisation on 1 January 2008, according to a decision taken by parliament this week.Obviously the accession to EPC and the approval of the NPI Agreement have been in one and the same package nodded through by the Norwegian Parliament on June 11, 2007.Technorati Tags: Patents
Norway Ratifies NPI Agreement.Earlier this yearI had reported on the project of establishing a Nordic Patent Institute (NPI). Recently, on June 11, 2007, the Norwegian Parliament has given its approval to the Agreement of July 05, 2006, between the governments of Denmark, Iceland and Norway to establish the NPI. Before that, on May 04, 2007, the Nordic Patent Institute had been assigned the two-letter code "XN" for use in all documents relating to industrial property titles and applications. The NPI will be located in Taastrup, Danmark. See also the Blog entry made by Mr Anders Due of the Danish PTO.Technorati Tags: NPI
Tuesday, June 12, 2007Landslide, Tremor Or Quake?Quake or tremor? is the headline of the main article on the cover of the recent print issuee of theIntellectual Asset Management Magazine. It deals with the changing face of patent monetisation in the U.S. I must confess, however, that today quite different associations came to my mind when thinking of words like quake and tremor in the context of Intellectual property.Seen from one side, today was quite a normal business day in a normal business week. Applicants from various fields of the industry continued to seek for patent coverage of their employee's inventions as ever, and Examiners in various Patent Offices issued Office Actions objecting to this and that. And, finally, a number of patents have been granted. However, if deliberately seen from some other side, I hardly can take today and other days earlier this month as normal and routine but I am tempted to feel that something very important is happening, gradually but steadily changing our business, not yet having decided to stand still some day or to culminate in some sort of a landslide, quake or tremor. A few days ago I wrote an article on a striking factual co-operation of a conference organisation EUPACO having emerged out of a scenery around FFII, on the one hand, and high-level IP attorneys from IBM, on the other hand. Obviously the most important patent applicant on the globe, in terms of quality as well as in terms of quantity, shows some desire to sort things out which previously had been standing crosswise between patent critics and activists on one side and the industry on the other. To explain this, FFII has put on the Internet a set of presentation slides from the EUPACO-1 conference, the slides being authored by Mr Roger Burt and Mr Jonathan Sage of IBM Europe titled "Intellectual Property Strategy in the 21 Century - Balancing Open & Proprietary Innovation". Take alone this title - besides IBM it might not be quite usual in various quarters of the industry to admit - not to mention even to stress - that open and proprietary innovation might be genuine antagonists that need some sort of balancing. When glancing at the slides, it appears as if in IBM's view from 2007 onwards collaborative innovation is an important concept. They think that there is a common life cycle of innovation like the progress from discovery to adoption to application where proprietary innovation has its place, but a limited and confined one. In particular at later stages IBM sees benefits to discuss the exploitation of inventions in the framework of Commons. Of course, not everyone in the industry outside of IBM might be prepared to share such views but I do think that IBM might well be playing the role of a vanguard in researching and exercising new models of exploitation of innovation.Meanwhile academia is continuing playing that well-known basso continuo of demanding fewer and narrower patents. There is a new Background Document for the STOA Workshop on Policy Options for the Improvement of the European Patent System addressing Members of the European Parliament, stating:In particular, the authors demand: The paper was coordinated by Mr Bjorn Bedsted, Project Manager, The Danish Board of Technology/ETAG, and prepared by:
Patentschutz und Innovation commissioned by the German Minister of Economy and Technology and authored by a larger number of German heavyweights in economic research which, unfortunately, is available in German only. There also is a general tendency in this paper to limit the scope of the patent system albeiit the practical conclusions presented at the end of the document may differ from those of the STOA backgrounder as mentioned above.Listening to the melody of IBM's sinfonia based on the melody of collaborative innovation over that basso continuo I suddenly feel very irritated by some cacophonic noise emerging from the inner gear of the European Patent Office. FFII-related circles have managed somehow to unearth Document CA/93/07 presented by the staff representation to the Administrative Council. The paper had been submitted by the staff representatives via the President of the European Patent Office in accordance with the Administrative Council's rules of procedure. The main headline says that the trust of the EPO Staff in its highest governing bodies, including the Administrative Council, is worryingly low. The paper stresses that staff perceives the attitude of the Council delegates towards staff as negative. Moreover, again according to that paper, when Staff Representatives mentioned certain alleged potential conflicts of interest in a recent Council meeting, some delegations reacted with irritation and even went so far as to threaten expulsion of the Staff Representatives from the Council if such allegations were made again. With other words: The atmosphere appears to be entirely poisoned. It surely is a grave situation but I am no sure as to if I would be prepared to go as far as Mr Joff Wild who, in his blog, reported the issue under the title Civil war at EPO. According to The Register, the EPO has confirmed that the Document is authentic, but could not offer any official comment on its findings at the time being. Furthermore, The Register was told the Document will be formally submitted to the Administrative Council only during the week commencing 25 June, after which perhaps some official comment might emerge. But still more interesting than the brawls in the framework of the European Patent Organisation are some concerns expressed in the staff paper that can directly be linked to the basso continuo mentioned earlier:"[...] There is a strong belief amongst staff that the financial benefits to the Member States arising from the renewal fees motivate the Administrative Council, and consequently the EPO administration, to focus on the quantity rather than the quality of the granted patents. [...]"It might well be desirable Member States of the EPC explaining publicly their position in this respect. If the Governments of EPC Member States should prove incapable of defusing the current spat this might, on the long run, well mature into a further nail in the coffin of the European Patent Organisation as an entity standing independently besides the legal framework of the European Union. However, Mr Pieter Hintjens seems to be a bit premature when foreboding"The EPO is collapsing, predictably."And, IPKat Blog comments on that pointing out that the term of Office for the current President of the EPO, Mr Pompidou, will terminate by June 30, 2007:"[...] The IPKat sincerely hopes that the new president Alison Brimelow, who is due to start her job at the end of this month, can help in bringing some harmony back to the EPO and bring to an end to this bickering. It certainly doesn't look good to the outside world that such a large and important organisation as the EPO is apparently riven with conflict between the ordinary workers and the higher levels of the organisation.But some very interesting insights about the role of money in this debate are then provided by a comment made on IPKAT's Blog by Mr Jim Boff, a prominent Patent Attorney from the UK, pointing out that the EPO can alternatively be seen as a wealthty organisation or as a wreck near bankrupcy; compare also the information given so far in epi information 04/2006:"[...] The perception may be that the EPO is a cash cow, but the reality is somewhat different. And, if all that were not enough stuff for a few days, another theme is sounded loud and clearly heralding further changes and instabilities for the world of IP. Just today the European Patent Office has published an on-line brochure Scenarios for the future - How might IP regimes evolve by 2025? - What global legitimacy might such regimes have? Apparently the supply of strong meat continues:"[...] Our analysis indicates that this vital system is one facing profound systemic change. This transition has happened so quickly that it has been hard for those within the hermetic world to grasp this and adapt to these changing conditions. The expanding stresses and strains within the patent system, caused in no small part by the need to cope with the growing demands of an ever-increasing number of global players, have created blockages, growing uncertainty for business and societal questioning. These tensions are being exacerbated by the driving forces pressuring on the system.And further: "[...] The patent system increasingly relies on technology, and new forms of knowledge search and classifi cation emerge.Perhaps all these events of a few days in June 2007 should be seen in their interconnection. Doing so might, under some circumstances, make sense of all that. [UPDATE 2007-06-13] The EPO has opened a discussion forum concerning the Scenarios project.Technorati Tags: Patents
Friday, June 08, 2007IPRED2 Still Open To Discussion.EFF Europe have published on their copycrime.eu website Document No. 9446/07 of the Council of the European Union titled "Amended proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcement of intellectual property rights". The paper is authored by the German EU Presidency and addressed to the Working Party on Substantive Criminal Law.Subject-matter of the paper is the further political destiny of the Amended proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRED2). The IPRED2 draft is fiercely debated. EFF, for example, objects in particular: "[...] IPRED2's new crime of 'aiding, abetting and inciting' infringement again takes aim at innovators, including open source coders, media-sharing sites like YouTube, and ISPs that refuse to block P2P services. [...]"Main findings on behalf of the EU Council as of February 21, 2007, had been:
plans to start with a general exchange of views and then begin to examine the European Parliament position in detail. No details seem to be known in the public so far. This appears to me as if virtually all interesting points are still open and undecided. Technorati Tags: IPRED2
Thursday, June 07, 2007U.S.: Move Towards Shared Responsibility For Patent Quality.From the on-line edition of theNew York Times:"[...] The Bush administration wants to reform the nation's patent system by requiring better information from inventors and allowing public scrutiny of applications, according to the director of the government's patent office.In particular, Mr. Dudas postulates something that might be seen as a new doctrine of a shared responsibility for patent quality among
Mr. Dudas' doctrine might, if ever cast into law, significantly change the way of preparing a patent application. Many inventors - in particular in big companies - are somewhat reluctant or even unable to provide a patent attorney attempting to draft an application text for a certain invention with concise information about written prior art. If required by law to provide reliable prior art information at the time of filing, the applicant typically would have to pay twice for prior art searches: The first one conducted or commissioned by a patent attorney prior to filing, and a second one conducted by the Patent Office after filing. Of course this would make the costs of patenting soar. For individual inventor applicants and small entities some exemptions from such requirements might be provided, says Mr. Dudas. On June 15, 2007, the U.S.-PTO will begin a pilot project for open reviews of software patents known as Peer-to-Patent Project. This might perhaps be seen as an implementation of the role of the public in improving patent quality.The U.S.-PTO has published in the Official Gazette a Notice defining the rules for the Peer-to-Patent project, including the requirements for participating applicants, third-party submitters and the rules governing the forwarding of prior art by New York Law School to the USPTO.There is an interesting comment by Mr. Lerner published in an article running on c|net:"[...] The patent office, said Josh Lerner, a professor at the Harvard Business School, has made a real effort to improve patent quality in the last few years. But Lerner questioned whether Dudas's current proposals amounted to relying too much on getting better information from applicants. Mr. Josh Lerner is the Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking at Harvard Business School, with a joint appointment in the Finance and the Entrepreneurial Management Units. Much of his research focuses on the structure and role of venture capital and private equity organizations.Sarcastic comments can be heard from Mr. Gregory Aharonian's Internet Patent News Service delivered via e-mail: "[...] Dudas' complaints about problems handling prior art are complaints about the PTO's incompetent logistics and search tools for handling prior art. Between the incompetence of the PTO CIO's Office, and the incompetence of PTO IT contractors, PTO examiners have been denied the resources and tools they need to handle prior art effectively. Sure, some applicants game the system with too little or too much prior art, but the bigger problem for many years has been the PTO's horrible set of tools and resources for handling prior art internally. The PTO is at least 10 years behind the times in search tools. [...]"It appears as if in Mr. Aharonian's view all recent U.S.-PTO information management initiatives are nothing more than emergency movements just to avoid the entire collapse of the patent workflow. I do not have privileged insights into the internal structures of the U.S.-PTO and, hence, I am inclined to refrain from commenting thereon any further here. Technorati Tags: Patent Reform
Wednesday, June 06, 2007IBM Now Partnering With FFII?From theEUPACO website:"[...] The European Green Alliance, IBM and EUPACO present the first in a series of briefings for key European Parliamentarians on the future of the European patent system.Mr. Hintjens is used, on the one hand, to stress that EUPACO shall not be seen as identical with FFII. But, on the other hand, he actually is President of FFII. Has Mr. Hintjens developed a split personality so far? I don't think so. He appears to be quite consistent in his positions within FFII and within EUPACO, respectively. Recently I had given some comments on the new strategy of FFII and I understand that IBM obviously is interested keeping some sort of a dialogue with a more pragmatic FFII. But what the heck makes IBM partnering with FFII that way? Of course the patent system as it stands is susceptible to improvements and it should be improved e.g. in terms of patent quality or reducing backlogs and processing time. But IBM's way of dealing with FFII might by risky. Mr. Hintjens and his co-activists are by far not dumb guys. IBM must be on the guard not just to be instrumentalised by FFII, in a first phase, as a door-opener and trust agent, facilitating contacts to lawmakers, then to be shrugged off in a second phase when FFII reaches through to press for certain destructive maximalist options like the the dissolution of the EPO or the like.I'm puzzled. And I'm not the only one, see Mr. Joff Wild's comments in his Blog on the IAM website.Recent resolution passed by the European Parliament might well be received as a stern warning to all players on the political stage of Intellectual Property: A body where a resolution demanding patents "not monopolising knowledge in the field of innovation" gets a majority might well be able to cultivate further anti-IP positions in many unforeseeable ways. And, a statement like "The patent system, and the need for a balance between the disclosure of inventions and rights that are granted is of vital importance to the European economy" appears to be FFII-speak demanding some sort of weakening of the patent system.Let's wait and see. I'm confident that Mr. Dave Kappos of IBM will do the right job in this perilous situation. Details of the fields of activity of Dr. Ingrid Schneider are availabe here [In German only, sorry]. She has extended experiences in political consulting concerning policy analysis, national and supra-national governance (in particular with regard to the EU), innovation and law, juridification, regulatory agencies, patent law, social studies of science, technology and innovation, technology assessment of biomedical technologies.Technorati Tags: Patents
Friday, June 01, 2007Chances For Renewed European IP Politics.Mr. Joff Wild of IAM hasposted in his blog an interesting article considering that during coming years three European pro-patent political heavyweights might well change the landscape of Intellectual Property in Europe:
ratification of the London Agreement by France even this year, although it is likely that there will be a last-ditch campaign against ratification from, among others, French patent attorneys, many of whom remain staunchly opposed.Technorati Tags: Patents
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