[Gllug] Down in the valley something stirred

[Richard Jones]

On Tue, Jun 01, 2004 at 05:47:51PM +0100, Leslie Till wrote:
> I recognise your concerns and understand fully the reasons behind them.  
> However, in considering the best ways to encourage innovation in the UK, 
> the Government believes that a fair and effective intellectual property 
> system, for software as well as for other areas of technology, plays a 
> central part in developing and protecting new ideas.  
> The proposals that were discussed by European ministers this week would not 
> introduce or extend the patenting of software or of computer-implemented 
> inventions.  Patents for computer-implemented inventions have been allowed 
> in the UK for decades - as many as 15% of current patent applications and 
> grants are for such inventions and vast growth has been seen in the 
> internet and software industry in this time. The proposed Directive  would 
> not change this position at all, nor would it make any software patentable 
> that is currently unpatentable.   
> The approach adopted by the UK Government and the European Commission in 
> the proposed Directive is to clarify the current position on patentability 
> of computer-implemented inventions and confirm that only those inventions 
> that involve a technical contribution can be protected by patents.  We 
> believe that this is beneficial for industry and consumers alike, and would 
> serve to help the continued development of the software industry in the UK 
> and Europe.
> 
> I hope that this is helpful

FWIW I received exactly the same reply word for word [*] from the DTI
by post when I wrote to my MP about the software patent business.

Rich.

[*] Well, I've not actually checked it's completely identical, but
it's suspiciously similar.  Perhaps the bit about "discussed by
European ministers this week" is different.

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