Z:gnu-www-ja-software-patents--cd6626-They (the UK Patent and Tradem/en

They (the UK Patent and Trademark Office) use a term that they call technical effect. This is a term which can stretch tremendously. You are supposed to think it means a program idea would only be patentable if it relates closely to specific physical activities. If that is the interpretation, it would mostly solve the problem. If the only software ideas that can be patented were those that really did relate to a particular technical, specific physical result that you might have patented if you didn't use a program, that would be OK. The problem is that you can stretch that term. You can describe the result you get by running any program as a physical result. How does this physical result different from every other? Well it is as a result of this computation. The result is that the UK Patent Office is proposing something that looks like it leads to mostly solving the problem and really gives carte blanche for patenting almost anything.