Patents On Presentation Of Information Excluded In EU, But Germany Has Just Granted A Patent On A Graphical User Interface

from the not-promoting-innovation-as-such dept

Software patents are contentious, and nowhere more so than in Europe. Patenting there is governed by the European Patent Convention (EPC). Article 52 of the EPC reads as follows:

(1) European patents shall be granted for any inventions, in all fields of technology, provided that they are new, involve an inventive step and are susceptible of industrial application.

(2) The following in particular shall not be regarded as inventions within the meaning of paragraph 1:

(a) discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods;

(b) aesthetic creations;

(c) schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business, and programs for computers;

(d) presentations of information.
Although the exclusion of software seems crystal clear there, the same Article adds the following regrettable rider:
(3) The provisions of paragraph 2 shall exclude patentability of the subject-matter or activities referred to in that provision only to the extent to which a European patent application or European patent relates to such subject-matter or activities as such.
What exactly those two words "as such" mean in this context has been argued over for years. In practical terms, it has led to thousands of software patents being issued thanks to clever framing by lawyers that takes advantage of the "as such" loophole. According to this post on a blog that is called unashamedly "European Software Patents," it seems that German judges have now gone even further, and granted a patent for a graphical user interface. That's surprising, because the same EPC Article 52 explicitly excludes "presentations of information" from patentability. So how did the lawyers get around that? By using the "as such" loophole again. As the blog post explains:
the Federal Court of Justice (FCJ) held that the [EPC's] exclusion is overcome when the presentation of information serves the solution of a technical problem with technical means
Just in case that legalese isn't crystal-clear, here are details of the case considered by the German court. The patent dealt with the display of visual information captured by a swallowable capsule equipped with a camera. Apparently, these cameras produce information too rapidly to be useful for ready examination by the human eye. That problem was solved by showing only a subset of transmitted frames in one window, and different subsets in other windows. The idea is that an expert can scan several of these windows at once, since the images in each are changing relatively slowly.

Germany's Federal Patent Court held this to be a pretty obvious idea (which it is), but the country's Federal Court of Justice reversed that finding, and decided that the idea of breaking up a stream of images into subsets was terribly clever, and definitely eligible for patent protection. It also made a more general statement about the patentability of graphical user interfaces:

Instructions relating to the (visual) presentation of information which do not primarily focus on the conveyance of particular content or its conveyance in a particular layout but on the presentation of image content in a manner that takes into account the physical characteristics of human perception and reception of information and are directed towards making possible, improving or making practical the human perception of the displayed information serve the solution of a technical problem with technical means.
It's one of those how-many-angels-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin distinctions beloved by patent lawyers, but which actually makes no sense. After all, it could be argued that any intelligible, well-designed presentation of information "takes into account the physical characteristics of human perception and reception of information," and therefore is eligible for a patent. The latest decision by the German courts will doubtless lead to the granting of further, similarly-trivial patents, and to companies increasingly nervous about the use of even the simplest graphical user interface in their products for Germany. So how is that encouraging innovation or benefiting the public?

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: europe, germany, patents, software patents, ui, ui patents, user interface


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2016 @ 3:50am

    In (minor) fairness to this patent, it is the breaking up of the stream that is the novelty, rather than specifically the GUI. If it wasn't for the fact that what they have done is mind-bogglingly obvious and remarkably unoriginal then it may have been worth patenting within the spirit of what patents are there for

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2016 @ 4:10am

      Re:

      What part of :-
      (d) presentations of information.

      do you not understand?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Dingledore the Flabberghaster, 12 Jan 2016 @ 4:27am

        Re: Re:

        I think the OP's original point is valid, and your "acting like a cock"-ness is unnecessary. From the description of what's happening, it would appear that the transmitted feed from the capsule is going through processing not indifferent from a codec.

        However, the article's point still stands because the (English translation of the) patent specifies that it's for a "method for displaying an image stream", rather than a method for processing an image stream for subsequent display.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2016 @ 4:37am

          Re: Re: Re:

          Ohhh, well - that makes it ok then.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2016 @ 6:06am

          Re: Re: Re:

          I hate the sophistry of lawyers serving control freaks, especially when they play tricks with language to make everything an exception to a general rule.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Ninja (profile), 12 Jan 2016 @ 4:02am

    This seems to me akin to patenting the round format of the wheels and tires. I mean you can improve your tire to be less resistant to rolling or to have better water flow but you cannot make it square or oval or whatever. It would make more sense if you applied other forms of copyright like protecting a determined graphical icon that represents, say, Microsoft Excel (and I'm using the term "make more sense" very loosely) but that's because that graphical object is directly related to the thing. But, and correct me if I'm wrong, the patent seems to 'protect' overlapping of still images and showing them in two frames. How can this be unique is beyond my comprehension considering the way the software operates seems to be more unique and they did not grant a patent on it.

    Not that intellectual property is comprehensible these days... But sometimes it manages to go full abstract.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2016 @ 4:03am

    So showing it in slo-mo wasn't an option?

    I am going to patent the showing of this video in slow motion. Then the human eye can perceive it. Profit!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    That Anonymous Coward (profile), 12 Jan 2016 @ 4:09am

    Germany home of GEMA & Newspapers who demand you pay them for sending them traffic... color me not surprised.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      That One Guy (profile), 12 Jan 2016 @ 4:31am

      Re:

      Come now, if search engines don't want to pay, then they can simply stop showing the snippets!

      ...

      What do you mean they stopped showing the snippets, file a lawsuit, force them to pay!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        ArneBab (profile), 12 Jan 2016 @ 5:06am

        Re: Re:

        > if search engines don't want to pay, then they can simply stop showing the snippets!

        Except if then the newspapers could start an antitrust case to force the search engines to treat all newspapers the same, even those who want money to be treated the same as others who don’t want money.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    ArneBab (profile), 12 Jan 2016 @ 5:16am

    Interlaced video reinvented…

    TV sets had the problem that they couldn’t show a sufficient framerate, so they showed frame 1,3,5 in one set of lines and frame 2,4,6 in the other set of lines.

    Doesn’t that count as prior art?

    Also it’s been shown before that displaying information side-by-side allows humans to take it in more easily: http://news.mit.edu/2011/miller-memory-0623

    (I already talked about the lessons learned from that for code — and for roleplaying games — way back in 2012: http://draketo.de/light/english/free-software/write-programs-you-can-hack-while-you-feel-dumb#commen t-1141 )

    So this is pretty obvious.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Geno0wl (profile), 12 Jan 2016 @ 6:04am

    Damn Shame

    It is a damn shame Software was not recognized for what it is...a simple reorganization of math and therefore not patent-able.
    Software should go under the umbrella of trademark or copyright. That still would potentially cause all sorts of problems(YOUR GUI LOOKS TOO MUCH LIKE MY GUI!) but at least it would potentially stop some of the ridiculous licensing problems we have now.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.