Patent decision

BL number
O/030/07
Concerning rights in
GB0418176.4
Hearing Officer
Mr H Jones
Decision date
24 January 2007
Person(s) or Company(s) involved
Nexpage Inc
Provisions discussed
PA 1977 sections 1(2)(c)
Keywords
Excluded fields (refused)
Related Decisions
None

Summary

The application relates to the distribution and dissemination of information to multiple users connected via a computer network, and it addresses the problem of maintaining a definitive version of a data object being edited in parallel by a number of users. A non-destructive data model or atom graph is used to record changes made to the data object by each user, which allows different versions of the data object to co-exist at the same time. A single atom graph is created when the data object is synchronised with other users, which allows all changes made by all users to be recorded and viewed. The Hearing Officer considered the recent Court of Appeal judgment in Aerotel/Macrossan and decided that the actual contribution made by the invention fell solely within the meaning of a computer program. It was not necessary to consider whether the contribution was technical in nature as set out in the fourth step of the Aerotel/Macrossan test. The application was refused.

Full decision O/030/07 PDF document71Kb