Patent Office holds software patents definition workshops

The workshops will focus on proposals in the draft that software related inventions that make a "technical contribution" would be eligible for patents.

But what does "technical contribution" mean? Opponents of the Directive have argued that the general nature of the term risks bringing to Europe the more liberal regime of software and business method patenting that exists in the US.

Such is the concern that the progress of the Directive, also known as the Software Patents Directive, has stalled, with political manoeuvring keeping the proposals off the Council agenda.

Separately, an influential European Parliamentary committee voted only last week to ask the Commission to send the proposed Directive back to Parliament for a first reading – a request that if granted would start the Parliamentary debate afresh.

In the UK, the depth of feeling over the proposals was made clear to the Government in December, when Lord Sainsbury, the Minister for Science & Innovation, and Patent Office officials met with critics.

As a result of that meeting the Patent Office has now set up a series of workshops to explore how best to define "technical contribution".

"We will be very interested to see if a definition which is clear to software developers can be found which continues to enable the patent system to protect technical inventions," said Peter Hayward, Divisional Director at the Patent Office. "We need to hear opinions from a broad range of interests – not just from patent attorneys and patent-owning software companies. The views of those software developers who work without patents are just as important to us."

Anti-software patent group the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure described the announcement as a very positive and constructive move on the part of the Minister and the Patent Office.

"The whole point of the Directive is that it should clearly define what is and what is not a 'technical contribution' and therefore patentable," said the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure. "Our biggest concern with the log-jammed Council of Ministers text has been that it just defines 'technical contribution' as a contribution which is technical ... which could be bent to mean anything at all."

The workshops will be held in the spring in Coventry, Belfast, Bolton, Glasgow, Bristol, London and Cardiff. Participants must register by 18th February.