The Red Dove - a symbol of hope

For our campaign we chose the Red Dove as a symbol of land in sight in terms of patent reform.

For the colour of the dove we chose as foreground colour

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Text colour: #0000A4

Meaning of the Dove

The Red Dove is a subtile emphasis of a patent law teaching well known to the international patent community. A case referred to in patent literature as "Red Dove" was decided by the German Federal Court (BGH). In the Red Dove case an applicant wanted to get a patent granted for the breeding process of Red Doves which included human intervention to select the birds. The judgement affirmed a natural forces teaching to define the scope of patent law. The judgement refers to controllable forces of nature without human intervention.

During the EU software patent directive debate we learned how useful a natural forces teaching is. While patent institutions claim the teaching as beeing outfashioned they provide no better replacement. Patent scholars generally lack a negative teaching to explain why patent protection does not extended to a certain field. Every domain has different needs. Would patents help artists, composers, filmmakers, writers, cooks, atheletes? Patents are not a universal panacea. Patent scholars often reverse the burden of proof when it comes to extention of the domain.

It is crucial that the patent legalese goes back to these classic teachings to keep the scope of the patent system in check. Patent law should be only applied for applied natural sciences. The Buzek/Rocard/Duff compromise amendment package included a teaching that achieved it.