Innovationpartners

This morning I attended an exclusive seminar on the Enlarged Board of Appeal opinion G 003/08. It is the new decision/opinion from may regarding computer-implemented inventions. A Danish Judge Michael Dorn was one of the members of the enlarged board and he told us what went on behind the scenes. 

 

Not much it seems. Dorn told about the special care that was taken to get the formal part of the decision right. The formal part takes up almost 50% of the text. An interesting part was the claim in the amicus curiae that one of the board members – Dai Rees – was biased and should not be a member of the board. It was decided however that Dai was not biased and could serve as a judge. I remember Dai Rees from my time in the DKPTO as a very professional patent specialist so it would have been a loss not to benefit from his knowledge in the board. 

 

Mr. Dorn paid special attention to the fact that 003/08 is not a decision but an opinion and said that there were other questions that the board would rather have answered than those which were put before the board. He also said that it was a close call (my guess is 4/3) as to whether the board would answer the questions (they decided not to).