The inventor company appealed against rejection of its application for a patent for a computer program.
Held: The appeal failed: ‘on the facts found by the Hearing Officer, the invention is no more than the computerisation of a process which could already be done without a computer. It has no relevant technical effect. Accordingly, the invention is not patentable.’
Arden, Kitchin, Gloster LJJ
[2014] EWCA Civ 1463
Bailii
Patents Act 1977 1, European Patent Convention 52
England and Wales
Citing:
At IPO – Lantana Ltd (Patent) IPO 4-Feb-2013
IPO The application relates to retrieving data from a remote computer using e-mail. A local computer sends a first e-mail containing machine-readable retrieval criteria and the remote computer responds with an . .
Appeal from – Lantana Ltd v The Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks PatC 4-Sep-2013
Peter Prescott QC J set out the four steps to be taken: ‘The approach is in four steps:
‘(1) properly construe the claim;
(2) identify the actual contribution;
(3) ask whether it falls solely within the excluded subject matter;
Cited – Aerotel 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 In one case a patent had been revoked on being challenged, and in the other, the . .
Cited – HTC Europe Co Ltd v Apple Inc CA 3-May-2013
Appeal against two findings that two patents relating to touch sensitive screens were invalid for obviousness in the light of prior art.
Held: It was appropriate for the court, when considering the patentability of computer programs, to adhere . .
Cited – Symbian Ltd v Comptroller General of Patents CA 8-Oct-2008
No Pattern Established to Patent Computer Systems
The Comptroller appealed against the decision in Chancery to grant a patent to the clamant for an invention which the comptroller said should have been excluded from protection under section 1(2) as a computer program. It was argued that the UK was . .
Cited – Autonomy Corporation Ltd v The Comptroller General of Patents, Trade Marks and Designs PatC 6-Feb-2008
autonomy_cgpPatC200802
The company appealed against the rejection of its claim for a patent.
Held: Lewison J said: ‘The manipulation of data stored on a computer (whether on the computer in use or on a remote computer) is unlikely to give rise to a contribution that . .
Cited – Designers Guild Ltd v Russell Williams (Textiles) Ltd (Trading As Washington DC) HL 28-Nov-2000
Copyright Claim: Was it Copied, and How Much?
The claimant sought to enforce its copyright in artwork for a fabric design Ixia, saying the defendant’s design Marguerite infringed that copyright. Two issues faced the House. Just what had been copied and if any, then did this amount amount to the . .
Cited – Reynolds v Herbert Smith and Company Ltd CA 1903
Buckley LJ held that an invention could produce an old product by a new process: ‘In my opinion the plaintiff fails on subject-matter, and fails on novelty. Of course the difference between discovery and invention is very familiar. Discovery adds to . .
Cited – Vicom/Computer-related invention EPOBA 1987
The claimant sought a patent claiming a method for the digital processing of images and an associated apparatus (which might be a computer) for implementing the method.
Held: The claims were not to a computer program as such: ‘Generally . .
Cited – Merrill Lynch’s Application CA 1989
The invention in this case was an improved ‘data processing system for making a trading market in at least one security in which the system proprietor is acting as principal.’
Held: More than one exclusion can be in play in relation to the . .
Cited – IBM Corporation/Data processor network EPO 1990
A new method of communicating between programs and data files within the computer, so that they operated effectively as a single entity, was held by the Board to be properly ‘regarded as solving a problem which is essentially technical’ and . .
Cited – Autonomy Corporation Ltd (Patent) IPO 7-Nov-2007
IPO The application relates to a method for generating links related to the content of an active window displayed on a computer screen and for embedding an icon representing these links within, for example, the . .
Cited – Re Protecting Kids The World Over (PKTWO) Ltd PatC 26-Oct-2011
. .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Intellectual Property
Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.538718