Are Those Frozen Flying Swine Circling Brussels?

It’s a miracle of miracles, but it appears that we agree on something with Thomas Vinje, legal counsel to the Microsoft Hater’s Caucus, and anti-software patent campaigner, Peter Hintjens.
On Friday, Alison Brimelow, president of the European Patent Office, referred how to assess the patentability of software-related inventions to the enlarged board of appeal (EBoA). It is expected to bring some clarity about what is patentable at the EPO.
An IDG story on the decision, quoted ACT President Jonathan Zuck, Vinje, and Hintjens all agreeing that this was a good move. They couldn’t disagree more about what decisions the EBoA should arrive at, but all agreed that we need clarity at this point.
From the article:

“The lack of clarity has frustrated the system in Europe,” he said. Zuck is a software engineer by trade.
Hintjens and Vinje both argue that software is a special case when it comes to innovation. Unlike other fields such as pharmaceuticals where patents are a vital tool for fostering innovation by ensuring a financial return for the inventors, software patents actually hinder innovation.
“Innovation in software rarely, if ever, sees a single major breakthrough; it comes about thanks to a string of small inventive steps made by many people all over the world. Everyone is building on what has gone before,” Vinje said.
Zuck argues the exact opposite: “Software-related inventions are no different to any other kinds of inventions and should be treated exactly the same when it comes to granting patents,” he said. He hopes the EBoA will come to the same conclusion.
Both he and Vinje said they hope the outcome of the referral will provide clearer definitions of what merits technical effect, inventiveness and what should be considered obvious. But while Vinje wants the bar to be set higher, Zuck wants that clarity applied across the board to all types of invention, keeping software in the same bag as all other inventions.

* Thanks for Incurable_Hippie for providing the perfect picture for this post.