ICC (nov 2004)argues Parliament amendments are violating TRIPs require software patents:
http://www.iccwbo.org/home/statements_rules/statements/2004/EU_directive_patentability_CII.asp]
- "These amendments attempt to define certain inventions as not being technical and thereby unpatentable. However, one cannot define an apple to be other than a fruit. It would defy common sense and the EU's legal obligations to define clearly technical things as non-technical. For example, Intel's Pentium integrated circuits are clearly technical, while only processing information and data."
One can always improve definitions so that we understand what a fruit is, and therefore categorize an apple correctly.
Clearly Intel's Pentium integrated circuits are only processing signals! These physical (technical) signals represent (logical) data which in turn represents some coded (semantic) information. These terms signal, data and information are defined in ISO/IEC 2382-1 and must not be applied as synonyms! (from Kiesewetter-Köbinger)
The term "technical" is itself just a fuzzy term, a rough hack through the use of an undefined term introduced to label what should be patentable. The difference(s) between what is excluded from patentability and what is not, are not clearly defined anywhere and that circumstance is not improved by the use of the term "technical" anywhere. The use of the term in TRIPs doesn't improve that circumstance either.
It's certainly easy to understand that instructions for a computer are distinct from the concrete means of implementing a computer (even when those instructions are embedded within an overall invention, such as microcode provided to an internal processor within an IC). But this point only addresses the one example given.
The important thing is that clearly the question goes to what exactly we really intend to make patentable, not what can be expressed by language that has no clear sense.
