Patents

• Author: International Law Group

On May 17, 1990, the petitioner filed a patent application with the German Patent Office (Patentamt) for a "Dialogue Analysis System for Natural Speech." Based on a previous patent application submitted in Japan, the system uses an input system, a dictionary, and a grammar check to analyze the language input. The Patent Office rejected the application and the petitioner appealed. The Federal Patent Court (Bundespatentgericht) denied the patentability of the system on May 17, 1998 (BPatGE 40, 62 und Mitteilungen 1998, 473).

The German High Court (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) agrees with the Patent Court that the system at issue cannot receive a patent because it is not based on a "technical achievement." The system at issue is based on the word of linguists who have analyzed language, identified grammatical rules and put the latter into software form.

Such activity is the application of data processing knowledge and does not necessarily contribute to the "technological" state of the art. For example, the system does not lead to new uses of data processing hardware.

Furthermore, under German and European Patent...