IPO The application relates to a system for enabling a user to access access controlled data. The invention is based on using a so-called ‘peer-to-peer’ network and allows a user to pass on to another user a media file that they have downloaded. That further user can then request permission to play the file without having to start again by downloading the file from a server, the request however naturally involving a payment. What allows the user to play the file is data incorporated into a ‘header’ which is separated from the main data of the media file, i.e. the music/video data itself.
The Hearing Officer applied the four step test set out in Aerotel/Macrossan in the light of the Symbian judgments and the ATandT signposts and found that the invention is excluded under Section 1(2) because it relates solely to excluded matter, namely to a computer program and a business method as such. The application was refused.
Citations:
[2013] UKIntelP o10713
Links:
Intellectual Property
Updated: 14 November 2022; Ref: scu.472238