Yes to software patents? No to software patents? Israel PTO thinking of reconsidering position on software patents

This morning the Israel PTO published a call for position papers regarding software patents.  The text of the notice, translated into English, reads as follows (the original appears at the end of this post):

This morning the Israel PTO published a call for position papers regarding software patents.  The text of the notice, translated into English, reads as follows (the original appears at the end of this post):

 

“The Patents, Designs and Trademarks Authority is interested in determining if there is reason to reexamine its policy regarding the examination of patent applications in the fields of software and hardware.  We hereby announce a call for the submission of position papers in the matter.  The Authority invites the public to send position papers until February 15, 2010 by electronic mail to LihiZ@justice.gov.il by post to Lihi Zoaretz, Israel PTO, 29 Agudat Sport Hapoel St., The Technological Park, Building 5, Malha, Jerusalem.  Position papers should be one-and-a-half spaced and run not more than four A4 pages.  The Authority has absolute discretion if and how to act as a result of this call for papers and/or any position papers that are submitted.”

 

At present, ILPTO policy regards software per se as unpatentable, but it may be patentable when claimed in combination with other elements.  The Commissioner has stated that in general, the patentability of “hybrid” inventions, viz. those that employ both hardware and software elements, will hinge on whether the “essence of the invention” is itself patentable.  Thus pure business method claims, having no tie to something the ILPTO considers to be technological, are ineligible for patent protection, but if the business method claim is tied to something technological, e.g. a computerized system, it may be patentable.  The analysis is not to be conducted on the individual elements of the claimed system, but on the system as a whole.

 

Thus, for example, a helicopter fuel control system was deemed patentable by the Tel-Aviv District Court when claimed as a combination of hardware and software elements.  In contrast, “A method for displaying a list of Internet sites, each having a home page, the method comprising: providing a picture of a selected page of each Internet site on the list; and displaying a name of each said Internet site together with said picture of said selected page of said site” was found by the ILPTO to be invalid, since (a) protection for the source code the display was available under copyright as literary and visual works of art, respectively, (b) the claimed invention was merely an idea for content display, and (c) the output of a software program, as content, is not patentable. (The ILPTO also ruled that the claimed invention wasn’t enabled by the specification.) 

 

Similarly, a claim reading, “A method of determining reliability with regard to a first factor which is dependent on a set of at least two second factors, each of the second factors being diversely subject to a third factor, data concerning the second factors being stored in storage accessible to a processor and the method comprising the steps performed in the processor of: using the data to determine correlations between second factors with regard to the third factor; using the correlations in determining a standard deviation of the third factor for the set; and using the first factor and the standard deviation in determining a reliability with regard to the first factor” was determined to be patent-ineligible because the essence of the invention was a business method and an algorithm, and technical elements of the claim were routine and did not constitute part of the essence of the invention.

 

קול קורא להצגת ניירות עמדה בנושא אמצאות טכנולוגיות בשטח התוכנה

 רשות הפטנטים, המדגמים וסימני המסחר מעוניינת לבדוק האם יש מקום לבחינה מחודשת של מדיניותה באשר לבחינות בקשות פטנטים בתחום התוכנה והחומרה. מוכרז בזאת על קול קורא להגשות ניירות עמדה בנושא זה.

הרשות מזמינה את הציבור לשלוח ניירות עמדה עד ליום 15.2.2010 בדואר אלקטרוני לכתובת LihiZ@justice.gov.il או בדואר עבור ליהיא זוארץ, רשות הפטנטים, המדגמים וסימני המסחר, רח' אגודת ספורט הפועל 29, הגן הטכנולוגי, בניין 5, מלחה, ירושלים.

נייר העמדה יודפס ברווח של "שורה וחצי" ולא יעלה על ארבעה עמודים בגודל A4.

לרשות מסור שיקול הדעת המוחלט אם וכיצד לפעול בעקבות פרסום הקול הקורא ו/או ניירות העמדה שיוגשו.