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Technical solutions not technical problems
If ideas must be "technical" to be patentable in a jurisdiction, then we must ensure that this criterion is applied to the idea or the solution, not the problem that's solved.
Consider a company that holds meetings on the fourth floor of a building. They install a new lift, but there's a technical problem: the lift doesn't stop at the fourth floor. Possible solutions:
- Reconfigure the lift, enabling it to stop at the fourth floor.
- Hold meetings on the third floor.
The first solution is technical, the second isn't.
If patent offices make the mistake of granting patents for solutions to technical problems, they will effectively eliminate the requirement for patent applications to be technical.
And then, of course, there must be a clarification that software ideas are not considered technical (in terms of the patent law).
Related pages on ESP Wiki
- Cabinet for the blind example - does it matter if a book is read by hardware, software, or a person?
- Choose your words
