Germany
- May 2013: see German parliament petition against software patents
Germany is part of the European Union, is a signatory of the European Patent Convention, and has significant case law regarding software patents.
Case law
- (See: Case law in Germany)
Germany has a mixed history of rejecting and, more recently, upholding software patents. Germany is a signatory of the European Patent Convention, so this case law will be influential in most of Europe. In 2010, the Germany High Court (BGH) upheld a patent on an XML document formatting system (case Xa ZB 20/08) and one of Microsoft's FAT patents (case X ZR 27/07).
Legislation
Patentable subject matter is defined by the below quoted part of this law: German original: Bekanntmachung der Neufassung des Patentgesetzes, Vom 16. Dezember 1980 (English translations[?]: Google, bing translator)
(3) Als Erfindungen im Sinne des Absatzes 1 werden insbesondere nicht angesehen:
- 1. Entdeckungen sowie wissenschaftliche Theorien und mathematische Methoden;
- 2. ästhetische Formschöpfungen;
- 3. Pläne, Regeln und Verfahren für gedankliche Tätigkeiten, für Spiele oder für geschäftliche Tätigkeiten sowie Programme für Datenverarbeitungsanlagen;
- 4. die Wiedergabe von Informationen.
(4) Absatz 3 steht der Patentfähigkeit nur insoweit entgegen, als für die genannten Gegenstände oder Tätigkeiten als solche Schutz begehrt wird.
Possibly of interest is German original: German court ruling "7 O 145/09" (English translations[?]: Google, bing translator) which discusses Sec. 15 para 3 and Sec. 140a para 3 of the German Patent Act, with info related to covenants not to sue.
Related pages on ESP Wiki
- Case law in Germany
- Controllable forces of nature - a test, based on German rulings
- German patent courts and appeals
External links
- http://www.dpma.de - Germany's patent office
- German original: PatentFrei (anti-swpat group, still active in 2010) (English translations[?]: Google, bing translator)
- Software Patents in Germany, Stefan Bechtold, July 2000
- German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
- 180 German police perform raid regarding software patents
- FFII's page on swpats in Germany
- http://www.esr-pollmeier.de/swpat/intro.html
- http://www.patentfrei.de/
- Industry Standards and the Competition Law Defence Acting Like a 'True Licensee' - about the competition law defence
- Software Patents in Germany - Current Developments, by Stefan Bechtold, July 2000
- Covenant not to sue [in German law], 6 Oct 2010, EPLAW patent blog
- Which discusses German original: German court ruling "7 O 145/09" on the difference between a "covenant not to sue" and a "licence" (English translations[?]: Google, bing translator)
- Bundeskartellamt clears CPTN joint venture for acquisition of Novell patents, 20 Apr 2011, Federal Cartel Office
- German original: ipwiki.de/patentrecht:softwarepatente (English translations[?]: Google, bing translator)
- German original: de.wikipedia: Softwarepatent#Deutschland (English translations[?]: Google, bing translator)
- German original: www.swpat.info (English translations[?]: Google, bing translator)
- German original: T-Mobile SPAM Patent ruled invalid (English translations[?]: Google, bing translator) - but it took five years!
- German Parliament prohibits patents on plants and animals from conventional breeding, 27 June 2013, no-patents-on-seeds.org
FFII pages
- FFII page about a 1976 BGH decision, which also has a handful of other good links near the top
- German original: FFII page about the 2002 ruling with "forces of nature" (English translations[?]: Google, bing translator)
- German original: FFII wiki about the Vistaprint case (English translations[?]: Google, bing translator)
- German original: FFII wiki listing software patent cases, most in German courts (English translations[?]: Google, bing translator)
