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European Patent Office continues to advocate harmonisation in the field of CII patents
Munich/Strasbourg, 6 July 2005 - The European Patent Office (EPO) has followed with interest the vote of the European Parliament today and has taken note of the decision of the European Parliament not to accept the Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions (CII) according to the Common Position of the Council. The proposed Directive is therefore deemed not to have been adopted. "The objective of the directive would have been to harmonize the understanding of what constitutes a patentable invention in the field of CII", explained the President of the EPO, Professor Alain Pompidou.
The EPO carries out a centralised patent granting procedure for the 31 member states of the European Patent Organisation. "Our Organisation was founded by almost the same countries as those which founded the European Union, and in the same spirit. The purpose behind the creation of the EPO was to make the patenting process in Europe more efficient by applying a single procedure on the basis of the European Patent Convention (EPC). In its practice, the EPO follows strictly the provisions of the Convention, which has been ratified by all member states of the Organisation", President Pompidou explained.
Under the EPC a well-defined practice on granting patents in the field of CII has been established: "The EPC provides the general legal basis for the grant of European patents, whereas the objective of the directive would have been to harmonise the EU member states' rules on CII and the relevant provisions of the EPC. The EPC also governs our work in the field of CII, together with the case law of our judiciary, the Boards of Appeal of the EPO," Mr Pompidou said.
As with all inventions, CII are only patentable if they have technical character, are new and involve an inventive technical contribution to the prior art. Moreover, the EPO does not grant "software patents": computer programs claimed as such, algorithms or computer-implemented business methods that make no technical contribution are not considered patentable inventions under the EPC. In this respect, the practice of the EPO differs significantly from that of the United States Patent & Trademark Office.
For more information please contact:
European Patent Office
Media Relations Department
80298 Munich
press@epo.org