IGT (Patent) O/068/08: IPO 5 Mar 2008

IPO The application related to a new way of providing a bonus when playing a gaming machine. Applying the Aerotel test the hearing officer held that, irrespective of whether the invention was claimed as a method of operating a gaming device or as the device itself, the contribution was a way of playing a game in which an award was dependent on the correct prediction or picking by a player of a selected one of a number of component symbols, the award being based on the particular symbol and possibly also on a ‘modifier’, ie a multiplier whose value could be changed to reflect the player’s predictions. The hearing officer did not accept the applicant’s argument that the contribution was a new mechanism providing a new functionality analogous to the ‘special exchange’ of Aerotel: the invention provided a new way of playing a gaming machine, not a new gaming machine. He therefore held that the invention was excluded as a method for playing a game, although not as a program for a computer, and did not see any basis on which to distinguish the cases in IGT( [2007] EWHC 0954 (refusal upheld on appeal from O/211/06) or to depart from his reasoning in an earlier decision O/184/07 on a similar argument from the applicant. Although it was not necessary to decide the point, he did not consider the contribution to be technical in nature.

Judges:

Mr R C Kennell

Citations:

[2008] UKIntelP o06808, O/068/08, GB 0419337.1

Links:

Bailii

Statutes:

Patents Act 1977 1(2)

Intellectual Property

Updated: 20 October 2022; Ref: scu.456973