Steven Critchfield wrote:
On Tue, 2004-12-07 at 09:46 +0100, Tom Ivar Helbekkmo wrote:Software is patentable in Europe and most other places, when it meets certain conditions. It always has been. There is actually nothing in European patent law directly about software. What is says is basically pure maths can't be patented, while applied maths can. The means fundamental algorithms can't be patented, but a piece of software that has a "technical effect" can. I think "technical effect" is also a magic term of some kind in US patent law. The US does, however, allow the patenting of pure maths.
Eric Wieling aka ManxPower <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
I have NEVER seen ANY statement by a patent lawyer that the G729
patents are not valid in some parts of the world. All I've seen is
non-lawyers saying that.
Have I completely misunderstood patents? I thought they were national -- i.e., if I patent something here, in Norway, at the Norwegian Patent Office, I'll have a Norwegian patent, and nobody else can sell products incorporating my idea in Norway without paying me a licence fee. My Norwegian patent will, however, have no clout whatsoever in the USA. In fact, I've been told by people who were supposed to know these things, that one has to make a trade-off between the cost of patenting an invention in N countries, and the gains one expects from those patents. Thus, one applies for patents in those countries were one expects large sales volumes to be possible.
Frankly, I tend to suspect that there are a lot of little countries where G.729 is *not* patented, because they don't have patent offices.
I would expect, however, that G.729 is protected by some sort of
patent or other agreement covering the entire EU, and thus valid in
Norway as well. (No, we're not a member: we want self-determination,
which is why we have agreed to follow all EU rules and regulations,
without the membership privilege of taking part in writing them.)
I posted about which countries the patents where first filed for. The URL for it is... http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/2004-October/065227.html It includes a link to the itu documents that tell you about the patents.
Of course I found this which shows you the ITU treaty. http://216.119.123.56/dyn4000/dyn/docs/ITSO/tpl1_itso.cfm?location=&id=5&link_src=HPL&lang=english
And guess what, Norway is a ITU treaty signor. http://216.119.123.56/dyn4000/dyn/docs/ITSO/tpl1_itso.cfm?location=&id=3&link_src=HPL&lang=english
BTW, I don't know what the site names should be above, the links where
found on google using words "itu treaty".
Try this link I posted on the users mailing list earlier http://www.patent.gov.uk/patent/legal/decisions/2004/o29204.pdf . This is a UK patent that went to arbitration, was thoroughly reviewed and passed under the current UK legal criteria. It has a "technical effect" so it got through. Read it. the term "technical effect" is the key trigger as to whether the thing is patentable. Within the arbitrators terms of reference their decision is right. This is a patentable thing under the 1977 UK patent law. However, prior art goes back to the earliest use of computers in the 1940s. The decision doesn't seem to allow for that. Still, if you have a few million to spare you could try to contest it in court, I guess. Good luck, the UK isn't partial to easily changing official decisions - see Charles Dickens, Bleak House and other works. It hasn't changed since his day.
Regards, Steve
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