IBM/Text processing (1988) T 115/85: EPOBA 1988

IBM sought a European Patent for a text processing program which caused a computer to give automatic visual indications about conditions within the computer.
Held: As a mere technical effect, the claimed step was not within Art 52(2): ‘Generally the Board takes the view that giving visual indications automatically about conditions prevailing in an apparatus or system is basically a technical problem.
The application proposes a solution to a specific problem of this kind namely providing a visual indication about events occurring in the input/output device of a text processor. The solution includes the use of a computer program and certain tables stored in a memory to build up the phrases to be displayed.
Even if the basic idea underlying the present invention might be considered to reside in that computer program and the way the tables are structured, a claim directed to its use in the solution of a technical problem cannot be regarded in the Board’s opinion as seeking protection for the program as such within the meaning of Article 52(2)(c) and (3) EPC.
As stated by this Board already in its decision in case T 208/84 (OJ EPO 1987, 14-23) an invention which would be patentable in accordance with conventional patentability criteria should not be excluded from protection by the mere fact that for its implementation modern technical means in the form of a computer program are used. However, in this context it appears useful to the present Board to observe that it does not follow from this statement that conversely a computer program can under all circumstances be considered as constituting a technical means.’

T-115/85
European
Cited by:
CitedAerotel Ltd v Telco Holdings Ltd and others, In re Patent Application GB 0314464.9 in the name of Neal Macrossan Rev 1 CA 27-Oct-2006
In each case it was said that the requested patent concerned an invention consisting of a computer program, and was not therefore an invention and was unpatentable. In one case a patent had been revoked on being challenged, and in the other, the . .

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Intellectual Property

Leading Case

Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.245709