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From en.swpat.org

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.

Contents 1 Case law 2 Legislation 3 Related pages on en.swpat.org 4 External links 4.1 FFII pages

[edit] 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).

[edit] Legislation

Patentable subject matter is defined by the below quoted part of this law: (in German) Bekanntmachung der Neufassung des Patentgesetzes, Vom 16. Dezember 1980 (^[?] English translations: Google, Babelfish)

(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 (in German) German court ruling "7 O 145/09" (^[?] English translations: Google, Babelfish) which discusses Sec. 15 para 3 and Sec. 140a para 3 of the German Patent Act, with info related to covenants not to sue.

[edit] Related pages on en.swpat.org

• Case law in Germany
  • Controllable forces of nature - a test, based on German rulings
• German patent courts and appeals

[edit] External links

• http://www.dpma.de - Germany's patent office
• (in German) PatentFrei (anti-swpat group, still active in 2010) (^[?] English translations: Google, Babelfish)
• 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 (in German) German court ruling "7 O 145/09" on the difference between a "covenant not to sue" and a "licence" (^[?] English translations: Google, Babelfish)
• Bundeskartellamt clears CPTN joint venture for acquisition of Novell patents, 20 Apr 2011, Federal Cartel Office
• (in German) ipwiki.de/patentrecht:softwarepatente (^[?] English translations: Google, Babelfish)
• (in German) de.wikipedia: Softwarepatent#Deutschland (^[?] English translations: Google, Babelfish)
• (in German) www.swpat.info (^[?] English translations: Google, Babelfish)
• (in German) T-Mobile SPAM Patent ruled invalid (^[?] English translations: Google, Babelfish) - but it took five years!

[edit] FFII pages

• FFII page about a 1976 BGH decision, which also has a handful of other good links near the top
• (in German) FFII page about the 2002 ruling with "forces of nature" (^[?] English translations: Google, Babelfish)
• (in German) FFII wiki about the Vistaprint case (^[?] English translations: Google, Babelfish)
• (in German) FFII wiki listing software patent cases, most in German courts (^[?] English translations: Google, Babelfish)