It will be recalled that inventions relating to computer editing of text have not been particularly successful in the European Patent Office (see for example Information Letter N.S. 175). The EPO has routinely regarded such inventions as merely a computerized version of mental acts and thus, although not falling within the EPO's prohibition on protection of computer programs as such, has found that they are caught by the prohibition on protection of mental acts. In the most recent case of this type, however, Editable Document/IBM, the EPO was persuaded that a technical problem was involved rather than a mental one. In this case, the invention in question related to changing of print commands when editing a document represented in digital form according to one word processing software so that the text could be imported into word processing operations operating under a different software. In this case since control of a printer was involved, the Appeal Board concluded that a technical problem had to be solved so that what was claimed was not merely a computerized version of a mental act and thus the claimed invention was patentable.