SOFTWARE PATENTS: DEFINITION OF 'TECHNICAL INNOVATION' STILL AT THE HEART OF THE MATTER.

• Position: Computerized inventions - Brief Article

The European Parliament has started the second reading of the highly controversial directive on the "patentability" of computer-implemented inventions. During a recent hearing organised by the legal affairs committee, experts agreed that software in itself should not be patented but that the crucial question when an invention is dependent on software to function was the definition of "technical contribution". The author of the report Michel Rocard attempted to reach a compromise between the different political groups with wording such as "a new teaching on the use of controllable forces of nature, under the control of a computer programme, and separate from the technical means needed to implement the programme...