The European Patent Office (EPO) announced that on March 8, 2005, the Council adopted by a qualified majority its common position on a draft directive laying down rules for the patentability of computer-implemented inventions, with Spain voting against, and the Austrian, Italian, and Belgian delegations abstaining.
According to a press release by the EPO, the Council's common position will now be submitted to the European Parliament for a second reading.
The proposed directive aims at ensuring an effective, transparent, and harmonized protection of computer-implemented inventions throughout the community so as to enable innovative enterprises to derive the maximum advantage from their inventive activity and provide an incentive for investment and innovation.
Existing differences in the administrative practices and the case law of the different member states regarding the patentability of computer-implemented inventions could create barriers to trade, and, hence, could impede the proper functioning of the internal market.
The Council’s common position lays down certain principles to apply to the patentability of computer-implemented inventions, intended in particular to ensure that such inventions, which belong to the field of technology and provided they make a technical contribution, are susceptible to patent protection, and conversely to ensure that those inventions which do not make a technical contribution are not susceptible to protection.
Accordingly, EU member states will be obliged to ensure in their national law that computer implemented inventions are considered to belong to the field of technology. In order to be patentable, a computer-implemented invention must be new, susceptible to industrial application and must involve an inventive step.