[Fsf-friends] THE PATENTS (AMENDMENT) ORDINANCE, 2004

[Anand Babu]

,----[ Ramanraj K <ramanraj@iqara.net> ]
| The THE PATENTS (AMENDMENT) ORDINANCE, 2004 is available online at
| http://lawmin.nic.in/Patents%20Amendment%20Ordinance%202004.pdf
| 
| The portion immediately relevant for us is the amendments to Section
| which shall come into force on the 1 st day of January, 2005. :
| <quote>
| 3. In section 3 of the principal Act, (a) in clause (d), for the
| words new use , the words mere new use shall be substituted; (b) for
| clause (k), the following clauses shall be substituted, namely:
| 
| (k) a computer programme per se other than its technical application
| to industry or a combination with hardware;
| 
| (ka) a mathematical method or a business method or algorithms; .
| </quote>
| 
| Provision (k) of Section 3 of the Patents Act, 1970 that deals with
| what are *not* inventions, reads as follows "a mathematical or
| business method or a computer program per se or algorithms;"
| 
| With effect from Jan 1, 2005, software in its "technical application
| to industry" or software in "a combination with hardware" would
| become patentable.  The words "technical application to industry" is
| far too general, that could virtually include any software, besides
| being vague and ambigious to say the least.  We should respond
| appropriately, as soon as possible, to prevent these provisions from
| being given effect to.
`----

"Software in combination with hardware" is generic too. It does not
only include all embedded software, but also device drivers and 
utilities. For example, a software application to manipulate faxes in
combination with a fax modem card can be viewed as "software in
combination with hardware". 

As Ramanraj points out, other case is even worse. We can classify
pretty much all software as industrial application.

This makes me furious. 

-- 
Anand Babu
Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org>