BGH 1980-09-16: Rolling Rod Splitting (Walzstabteilung) Decision

title:: BGH 1980-09-16: Rolling Rod Splitting (Walzstabteilung) Decision
source:: BGHZiv 1981 Bd 78 p98ff, BGH-Az: X ZB 6/80

The Text
Annotated Links

1. The Text

The patent office has rejected as lacking novelty a patent application, which according to its original designation pertained to a process of cutting off the rest lengths of the rolling rods which had been split down to a vending length. Against this, the applicant has filed a complaint based on the following patent claim nr 1:

Work process during splitting of roller rods to cooling bed lengths behind continuously working rolling lines, during which the rolling workpieces are during roll-out captured by measuring devices and the measured values are sent to a computer, which finds out the complete length and, taking into consideration the maximal length of the pieces to be conveyed over the cooling bed and the minimal length determined by the running speed of the rolling pieces and the working rhythm of the cooling bed, controls the subdivision into integer multiples of the vending length with the further constraint that any rest length shorter than the full vending length is appended to an integer multiple of the vending length and that none of the remaining partial lengths are cut whose length is a larger integer multiple than that of this partial length with an appended rest length, characterised by the fact that ...

The admitted legal complaint remains without success.

The Federal Patent Court has given as a reason for its decision that the teaching contained by claim 1, as far as it goes beyond the state of the art as expressed in the generic concept of the claim, constitutes a pure thinking instruction for the programming of a computer, i.e. a a computing program. This is only one of the prerequisites for being able to control the workflow of a machine equipement in a sensible way with help of a computing device. A patentability of such a teaching can moreover not be deduced from the fact that the untechnical calculating program is combined with technical features. For neither is the computer modified in an inventive way by use of the computing program, nor does the claim teach a new and inventive way of using the computer. Under these circumstances it is moreover without meaning that the program serves a technical purpose. ...

...

According to the explanations of the contested decision, the invention consists in a splitting method of the known kind in which the goal of splitting down to cooling bed lengths, i.e. achieving that in each cold-cutting position the last cut removes only rest lengths, is achieved by the following instructions:

First, base your calculation of the complete length of the rolling rod on the weight as actually used.
On the basis of thus inferred length and the given conditions of operation and sales, calculate with help of a computer partial lengths and split these in such a way that the penultimate (next to last) partial lengths are shorter by at least one vending length than the last partial length which has the rest length appended to it.
Then also with help of the computer before the last partial sections calculate the to be expected total length of the rolling rods precisely based on measurements that have meanwhile become possible by known means and determine the difference to the previously inferred value.
Compensate this difference during the last partial length(s).

...

The Federal Patent Court correctly remarks that the transformation of the used material as well as its cooling and splitting into vending lengths require technical means and dispositions, but that these technical means -- measuring devices, computer, cold cutter -- are known to the skilled person and are not subject to any further elaboration, let alone inventive development, in the patent application, and that moreover the patent application does not teach a way of using the known technical means in a new and inventive way. The conclusion drawn herefrom that the given teaching is a "pure thinking instruction" and merely constitutes a "systematically recorded complete instruction, by which a problem can be solved by calculation", correctly describes the subject matter of the invention and therefore, according to the jurisdiction of the senate, leads to the consequence that the applied-for teaching is not patentable due to lack of technical character.

As the senate has explained in its "Dispositionsprogramm" decision, the question of the technical character of an invention is not dependent on its verbal clothing. It is therefore without decisive significance that in the patent claim technical devices and entities are named. It is moreover not decisive that for the execution of the invention-based process technical means are recommendable or constitute the only practically viable mode of implementation (senate decision PV). Finally it is without significance that the result obtained by application of the teaching is used in the technical field (senate decision "Straken"). No, it only needs to be considered which instructions constitute the claimed-to-be new and inventive core of the teaching, i.e. in which steps the problem is led to a complete solution. When looking at the process steps which the contested decision correctly and uncontradicted by the legal complaint identified as the decisive ones, then it is clear that the core of the teaching consists in an untechnical thinking scheme and that, similar to the disposition program case treated in the "Dispositionsprogramm" decision, the realm of technology is set foot upon only after the real problem solution has already been completed. ... The measuring values (e.g. the operation conditions of the cooling bed and the cold cutter) and means (measuring devices) needed for obtaining measuring values are no more integral parts of the problem solution, which does not exceed the realm of the mental-schematic, than are the apparatusses used for calculating and for controlling the device according to the results of the calculation. In comparison with the disposition program treated by the senate in the said decision, this teaching differs only in that the values processed by the program relate to a technical process and that the results obtained with help of the program are used in a technical process. As the senate has repeatedly said, such differences do not justify viewing this teaching as a technical one.

...

It was pointed out correctly that such a case is being submitted to the senate's decision for the first time; an immediate control of the production process by means of results obtained using the computer has in no case been subject of the programs which the senate so far has had to assess for technical character. Yet the Federal Patent Court has correctly reached the opinion that in such cases the criteria for deciding can be no different than in the cases decided so far. Here also the concept of technical invention as found in the caselaw of this senate is to be taken as a starting point, meaning, in summary, that a technical invention is the plan-conformant use of controllable natural fores outside the realm of human reasoning for directly achieving a causally overseeable success. In the case under deliberation here the use of natural forces is in the explained sense not part of the problem solution, and the achieved success -- the aimed-for splitting of the rods -- does not directly result from executing the instruction, but is indirectly achieved by independent technical means which are likewise not part of the problem solution. Just like the computer in the previously decided cases, in this case not only the computer but also the peripheral hardware, whose activity is evaluated and controlled by the computer, is not subject of the invention. This could be seen differently only if the invention changed the design or use of the technical means in an inventive way. Specially in the case of a process computer, a technical innovation could be discerned if the claimed teaching required and disclosed new and inventive controlling means or their new and inventive use for influencing the production process. However in the present case, even according to its presentation by the applicant, there can be no talk about anything of the sort.

...

2. Annotated Links

BGH 1976-06-22: Dispositionsprogramm: A landmark decision of the German Federal Court (BGH): 'organisation and calculation programs for computing machines used for disposition tasks, during whose execution a computing machine of known structure is used in the prescribed way, are not patentable.' This is the first and most often quoted of a series of decisions of the BGH's 10th Civil Senate, which explain why computer-implementable rules of organisation and calculation (programs for computers) are not technical inventions, and elaborates a methodology for analysing whether a patent application pertains to a technical invention or to a computer program. The Dispositionsprogramm verdict is especially famous for general and almost prophetic terms in which it explains that patent law is a variant of copyright for a specialised context, namely that of solving problems by the use of controllable forces of nature. Any attempt to "loosen and thereby in fact abolish" the concept of technical invention would lead onto a forbidden path, the judges warn.
Kolle 1977: Technik, Datenverarbeitung und Patentrecht: Gert Kolle, today in charge of the EPO's international affairs department, was in the 1970s the leading law scholar on questions of patentability of computer programs. He acted as a "scientific adviser and rapporteur of the German delegation" at various patent legislation conferences of the 1970s. He always strove to interpret the current jurisdiction in a scholarly and systematic manner, far from what he called "ideological petrification of the software patentability debate" even in those days, and in this article of 1977, published in the leading German IP law journal, he explains, why computer programs canot be considered to be "technical", and why any attempt to "naively or willingly" open up the patent system for computer programs would inevitably lead to unlimited patentablity and to dangerous monopolisations of the sphere of pure reason, which, although thinkable under the EPC, go far beyond what a responsible judge may be allowed to decide. Kolle says that conservatism on this matter is a virtue, and a judge should be proud to wear the label "stuck in 19th century thinking", that software patentability proponents of the 1970s were eager to post onto their critics.
Bernhardt & Kraßer 1986: Lehrbuch des Patentrechts: Prof. Kraßer von der TU München überarbeitete das Lehrbuch von Prof. Bernhardt, ebenfalls TU München, nach dem Inkrafttreten des EPÜ und des neuen PatG völlig neu, um der neuen Gesetzeslage und der Rechtsprechung bis Anfang 1986 Rechnung zu tragen. Die Erklärungen zum Begriff der Erfindung und der Technik lehnen sich eng an die BGH-Rechtsprechung an und zitieren häufig insbesondere Gert Kolles Schrifttum hierzu. Kraßer sagt u.a. folgendes: Der Begriff der Erfindung ist gewohnheitsrechtlich durch den Begriff der Technik definiert. Eine Erfindung ist eine technische Lehre, d.h. eine Anweisung zum unmittelbaren Einsatz von Naturkräften zur Erreichung eines kausal übersehbaren Erfolges. Nicht technisch sind z.B. Organisations- und Rechenregeln, welche als Problemlösungen abgeschlossen sind, bevor bei ihrer Ausführung (z.B. in einem Computerprogramm) das Feld der Technik betreten wird. Der Katalog der Patentierbarkeitsausschlüsse in Art 52 EPÜ bestätigt dieses Gewohnheitsrecht und macht es verbindlich. Dies bedeutet, dass vielen bedeutenden geistigen Leistungen der Patentschutz versagt werden muss. Es wird im Schrifttum vielfach gefordert, diese Begrenzung der Patentierbarkeit aufzugeben oder zu lockern, insbesondere um dem Bedürfnis der zunehmend bedeutenden EDV-Branche nach Investitionsschutz entgegenzukommen. Der BGH lehnt dies jedoch ab. Es verbietet sich, einen solchen erweiterten Patentschutz auf dem Wege der richterlichen Rechtsfortbildung anzustreben. Nicht jede wirtschaftlich bedeutende Leistung muss schützbar sein. Wenn eine Leistung in einem Bereich nicht schützbar ist, so könnte das auf ein besonders hohes Freihaltungsbedürfnis für diesen Bereich hindeuten. Die Eröffnung des Patentschutzes für DV-Programme wäre vielleicht erwägenswert, aber das würde eine wohlüberlegte Gesetzesänderung erfordern. Bei sorgfältiger Abwägung der Vor- und Nachteile spricht viel gegen eine solche Änderung. Im Bereich der Organisations- und Rechenregeln steht den Belohnungsinteressen der Neuerer nämlich ein stärkeres Freihaltungsbedürfnis der Öffentlichkeit entgegen, da untechnische Neuerungen typischerweise ohne eine neue technische Ausrüstung von jedermann angewendet und weiterentwickelt werden können. Zudem scheint die Softwarebranche grundsätzlich mit den Möglichkeiten des Urheberrechts zufrieden zu sein. Allerdings hat der BGH um 1985 für die Anwendung des Urheberrechts auf Software so hohe Hürden aufgestellt, dass für viele Computerprogramme kein angemessener Rechtsschutz erhältlich ist. Daraus ergibt sich einerseits der Ruf nach einer besseren Anpassung des Urheberrechts auf Software oder einem urheberrechtsbasierten Software-Sonderschutzrecht, wie es die WIPO 1977 vorschlug. Andererseits wächst aber auch die Versuchung, über Hintertüren in den neuen EPA-Prüfungsrichtlinien von 1985 doch noch Patentschutz für Software anzustreben.
CEC Software Patent Consultation 2000 Submissions:: The Federal Patent Court (FPC/BPatG) had rejected the claims to an anti blocking system, because they pertained to an organisational or computational rule that solved an abstract problem within a known model, without any necessity of recourse to experimenting with natural forces. The Federal Court of Justice (FCJ/BGH) now overruled this rejection and upheld the patent, saying that it was enough that the claims were directed to a braking process whose causality is not determined by logics but dependent on forces of nature. Simultaneously the FCJ legalised function claims. The commentator, a patent attorney, hails this as groundbreaking good news that will send a sigh of relief through the rounds of patent lawyers, who had been struck by sorrow and anguish after reading the earlier FPC verdict, which seemed like a "witch hunt against all things non-technical".
Patent Jurisprudence on a Slippery Slope -- the price for dismantling the concept of technical invention: So far computer programs and other rules of organisation and calculation are not patentable inventions according to European law. This doesn't mean that a patentable manufacturing process may not be controlled by software. However the European Patent Office and some national courts have gradually blurred the formerly sharp boundary between material and immaterial innovation, thus risking to break the whole system and plunge it into a quagmire of arbitrariness, legal insecurity and dysfunctionality. This article offers an introduction and an overview of relevant research literature.


Software Patents > Reviews > Akte München 1973 > BGH 1976 Disposition > BGH 1980 Walzstäbe
BGH 1976 Disposition	BGH 1980 Walzstäbe	BGH 1980 ABS	BGH 1977 Straken	BGH 1977 Prüfverfahren	BGH 1978 Fehlerortung	BGH 1984 Acrylfasern