Status quo

Hartmut Pilch 2004-03-14

It is important that not we but CEC refers to EPO practise as "status quo". If the "status quo" consisted only in EPO practise, there wouldn't be anything to "harmonise". "harmonising the status quo" is a nonsense expression.

2005-03-18 Wired Magazine

Jeremy Philpott, a marketing executive and former senior examiner for the U.K. Patent Office, noted that although the EU Patent Convention of 1973 specifically prohibits patenting software, in practice many such patents are granted. "The intended purpose of the directive is to clarify the law while maintaining the status quo," Philpott said. "Anything unpatentable now, such as business methods, should remain so when the directive comes in, whereas software which has a technical contribution and is patentable now would still be patentable."