Patent decision

BL number
O/099/07
Concerning rights in
GB0404737.9
Hearing Officer
Mr P Slater
Decision date
5 April 2007
Person(s) or Company(s) involved
IGT
Provisions discussed
PA 1977 Section 1(2)
Keywords
Excluded fields (refused)
Related Decisions
None

Summary

This application relates to an electronic gaming machine such as a “slot machine” wherein players receive monetary awards which are displayed, for example, in the form of a three digit number. The player can then choose whether to keep the original award or to modify or gamble the award. A number of methods are provided for modifying the award, one of which is to re-arrange or scramble the original three digits to form a new number e.g. the digits 416 may be scrambled to become 614, 164 etc. Alternatively, the machine may modify the original award by regeneration i.e. generating a complete new set of digits, by adding or subtracting a digit, or by applying a predetermined multiplier.

The hearing officer held that the invention failed the third step of the Aerotel/Macrossan [2006] EWCA Civ 1371 test because the contribution, “a method selected and used to modify the award, and in particular the operation of regenerating or scrambling the digits to produce a new award”, related to no more than a scheme, rule or method for playing a game and a program for a computer as such.

Full decision O/099/07 PDF document37Kb