Walzstabteilung decision translated

[PILCH Hartmut]

Under

        BGH-Beschluss Walzstabteilung 1980
        http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/papri/bgh-walzst80/

you now find the German original and an English translation of a
decision of the German Federal Court which confirmed that a rule
of organisation and calculation does not become a technical invention
by the fact that it is executed on a computer, even if it serves to
control the cutting of rolling rods in an industrial manufacturing
context.  What is important is not whether the application of the
innovation is hardware or software, but whether natural forces are
at the core of the problem solution.

This decision explains very nicely what is a technical invention and
provides a well-thought and well-worded answer to a lot of old patent
lawyer junk-talk about hardware-software equivalence that has been
looming around in the discussions since the sixties and became quite
prominent lately, e.g. in the recent "study" of the Academie de
Technologies.

While currently no German lawcourt, not even the Federal Patent
Court's 17th senate, would judge in the same way as the BGH did in
this decision, the shining example of consistency and law-abiding is
still there and AFAIK no court has ever argued that there was anything
systematically wrong with it.  The argument has only been whether it
is adequate for promoting innovation or "too restrictive".  It is a
well-legitimated line of reasoning to which we can return any time and
which should also serve as a reference point for the debate on the EC
directive.

--
Hartmut Pilch                                           http://phm.ffii.org/
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation        http://swpat.ffii.org/
80000 signatures against software patents         http://www.noepatents.org/