The application related to the configuration of a process control system, allowing new process flow modules to be created by assembling program objects representing components of the process. The hearing officer followed the four-step approach to the assessment of patentability under section 1(2) approved by the Court of Appeal in Aerotel/Macrossan [2006] EWCA Civ 1371 in determining whether the invention was excluded from patentability. He held that as the applicant had accepted that there was not necessarily any new process flow modules being created which could not be created by conventional programming, the contribution made by the invention was a program which made it easier to modify a control system. He therefore held that the invention was excluded from patentability as it was a computer program as such.
Citations:
[2007] UKIntelP o14907
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Intellectual Property
Updated: 27 October 2022; Ref: scu.456681