EU Legislation, Initiatives, etc.

UK-IPO: The UK Intellectual Property Office (UK-IPO) has issued a Practice Notice setting out a change in its approach to patents for computer programs in certain narrow circumstances, following a hearing before Mr Justice Kitchin in the High Court (Astron Clinica's Application and others Applications 2008 EWHC 85 (Pat).
 
In his judgment, Kitchin J has now clarified the law in this area, and decided that patents should, as a result of applying the test formulated in Aerotel/Macrossan, be allowed to protect a computer program if, but only if, the program implements a patentable invention.  This ruling is a narrow one which places a greater emphasis on the substance of what has been invented than the words used in the claim.  It does not have the effect of making computer programs generally patentable in the UK, but it does allow innovators to enforce all aspects of their patentable inventions directly.
 
What is patentable in the UK is determined by the Patents Act 1977 which is aligned with the European Patent Convention (EPC), which states that patents are not available for computer programs as such.
Press release ~ Practice Notice ~ Copy of the judgement in the cases Aerotel Ltd v Telco Holdings Ltd (and others) and Macrossan's Application 2007 RPC 7 ("Aerotel/Macrossan") ~ Copy of the judgement (Astron Clinica's Application and others Applications 2008 EWHC 85 (Pat) ~ Patents Act 1977
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