| Nope, I read the actual legal text. Any reporting that it bans software patents
is NOT to be believed.
10A(1) "A computer program is not an invention and
not a manner of manufacture for the purposes of this Act."
That bit
sounds great, however:
10A(2) "Subsection (1) prevents anything from
being an invention or a manner of manufacture for the purposes of this Act only
to the extent that a claim in a patent or an application relates to a computer
program as such."
The "as such" phrase has been twisted into a bizarre
legalese equaling software-that-doesn't-do-anything.
Software-which-does-something is NOT "software as such". The way the patent
lawyers rationalize this is by saying they are not claiming a patent on the
software (as such), they are claiming a patent on what the software does.
10A(2) essentially says that 10A(1) ONLY applies to excluding
software-that-doesn't-do-anything.
Taken together, 10A(1) and 10A(2)
basically translate into a pair of blank lines. That leaves us with 10A(3) as
the only meaningful section:
10A(3) "A claim in a patent or an
application relates to a computer program as such if the actual contribution
made by the alleged invention lies solely in it being a computer
program."
This does exclude something - it says if you take an old
familiar non-patentable thing it cannot become patentable if the sole
thing you add is the words "on a computer". However that only excludes the
really loony crap that has generally been getting thrown out anyway. It does NOT
exclude software that does something "new". In particular it does not exclude
the classic radical-pure-software patents like the GIF patent and the RSA
encryption patent. The GIF patent is a claim on compressing images, and the RSA
patent is a claim on encrypting stuff. Nither of those is a claim on "software
as such", it's a claim on what the software does. And in neither of does
the contribution lie "solely in it being a computer program", the contributions
are compressing images and encrypting stuff.
So what this bill actually did
was enshrine radical pure-software patents into law. It's the radical patent
expansionist agenda that anything "useful" and "new" must be patentable. The
10A(2) represents the "useful" part, you can only claim software that does
something useful. 10A(3) represents the "new" part, with the comical
clarification that it takes more than "on a computer" to qualify as something
new.
Just to be thorough I'll address the remaining sections:
10A(4)
"The Commissioner or the court (as the case may be) must, in identifying the
actual contribution made by the alleged invention, consider the following:
(a) the substance of the claim (rather than its form and the contribution
alleged by the applicant) and the actual contribution it makes:
(b) what
problem or other issue is to be solved or addressed:
(c) how the relevant
product or process solves or addresses the problem or other issue:
(d)
the advantages or benefits of solving or addressing the problem or other issue
in that manner:
(e) any other matters the Commissioner or the court
thinks relevant."
It's a list of things to "think about" while examining
a patent. And really the only thing I see as notable is (b) "what problem or
other issue is to be solved or addressed", which is pretty much just a
reminder that what the software does is the basis for claiming/issuing
the patent.
10A(5) "To avoid doubt, a patent must not be granted for
anything that is not an invention and not a manner of manufacture under this
section."
Another section which, here, does exactly nothing. The prior
sections precisely map out "software that does something new" isn't-not
an invention. That double-negative quite loudly implies which software
supposedly is an "invention".
The bill also has clause 165B, clause 264, and
Schedule 2 Part 2, but those are trivia unrelated to patentability.
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