Summary
Interview published in Athena in November 2003, when the author was an intellectual property lawyer at the Facultés universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix in Namur. It contrasts copyright, which protects only the original expression of a computer program, with patents, which also cover the process the software implements. Although Article 52 of the Munich Convention excludes programs “as such”, the European Patent Office already granted patents for computer-implemented inventions, and the proposed directive largely confirmed that practice. The author argues that the debate cannot be reduced to all or nothing: software should not be excluded from patentability a priori, provided the conditions, notably the technical contribution, are applied strictly.
Reference
H. Haouideg, « Le débat sur la brevetabilité du logiciel ne peut se limiter à une logique du tout ou rien », Athena, 2003, n° 195, p. 137.