The European Patent Office has invited representatives from EU institutions, national patent offices, courts, industry, patent attorneys and lobbyists to discuss computer-implemented inventions (CII) at a conference in Brussels next week.

The conference, which will be held at the Renaissance Hotel on 5 July, comes exactly two years after the European Parliament (EP) rejected the Commission's proposal for a directive on computer-implemented inventions.

But two year on, the number of patent applications relating to computers, telecommunications and electronic media - the product areas with which most of these inventions are associated - continues to grow.

Both the EPO and the national patent offices have also seen the number of appeals before the technical boards of appeal and the national courts grow, and public interest in the area has remained high.

Targeted at European policymakers, special interest groups, patent specialists and journalists, the conference will address how patenting practice has evolved since July 2005.

(EPO)