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 speaking, 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. Decisive is what technical contribution the invention as defined in the claim when considered as a whole makes to the known art’.
‘a method for obtaining and/or reproducing an image of a physical object or even an image of a simulated object (as in computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing . . systems) may be used e.g. in investigating properties of the object or designing an industrial article and is therefore susceptible of industrial application. Similarly a method for enhancing or restoring such an image, without adding to its informational content, has to be considered as susceptible of industrial application’ and hence would not be excluded from patentability.
‘. . a claim directed to a technical process which process is carried out under the control of a program ( . . in hardware or in software) cannot be regarded as relating to a computer program as such . . , as it is the application of the program for determining the sequence of steps in the process for which in effect protection is sought’.
‘Generally claims which can be considered as being directed to a computer set up to operate in accordance with a specified program (whether by means of hardware or software) for controlling a technical process cannot be regarded as relating to a computer program as such.’
Finally at [16] the Board described ‘making a distinction between embodiments of the same invention carried out in hardware or in software’ as ‘inappropriate’, as what is ‘decisive’ is the ‘technical contribution which the invention described in the claim when considered as a whole makes to the known art’.
[1987] OJ EPO 14, (1986) T208/84, [1987] 2 EPOR 74
European
Cited by:
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 – In Re Patent Application No 9204959 by Fujitsu Ltd CA 14-Mar-1997
A computer program modelling a crystal structure is not patentable; it was not a hardware function, and software is not capable of protection under Patents law. Aldous LJ repeated his concern at the so called ‘technical contribution test’ for . .
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 – Cappellini and Bloomberg, Re PatC 13-Mar-2007
The applicants appealed rejection of their applications for patents. The comptroller-general had said that patents were in respect of computer programs excluded from registration.
Held: The appeals failed. There was no relevant technical . .
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 – Lantana Ltd v The Comptroller General of Patents, Design and Trade Marks CA 13-Nov-2014
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 . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
European, Intellectual Property
Leading Case
Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.245708