Germany: Technology

The European Patent Office refused to grant a patent for a method of developing rod patterns in nuclear reactors based on simulation, ruling that the claimed features do not produce a technical effect. This decision examines whether simulation results for reactor design constitute technical contributions when the rod patterns are not directly implemented in actual reactors and may have non-technical uses such as study purposes.

A European patent application for a method of estimating departure times for scheduled events was refused by the Technical Board of Appeal. The Board found that effects resulting from modified business schemes cannot contribute to technical character, and that inherent effects from computer implementation are insufficient without achieving a "further" technical effect beyond normal computational processes.

The European Patent Office's Technical Board of Appeal 3.5.01 examined whether using a QR code's rotational angle as an additional input parameter for information retrieval constitutes a technical contribution to patentability.

Software can be sold in the widest variety of formats, for example based on a data carrier, by transfer of a master copy on a data carrier, by online download, in OEM models or for online use (cloud computing, ASP, etc.).

The term "Cloud Computing" is generally used to describe services through which a company accesses software applications, databases, infrastructure and related services via the Internet or other networks.

The German Federal Supreme Court has ruled that Google could use and display a thumbnail preview of a picture taken from an artist’s web site, because she had not sent a signal to say that she objected to this.