Patent decision

BL number

O/123/07

Concerning rights in

GB0304637.2

Hearing Officer

Mr A C Howard

Decision date

11 May 2007

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Swapstream Limited

Provisions discussed

PA Act 1977 Section 1(2)(c)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The invention related to a method of facilitating the operation of markets for financial instruments such as “SWAPS”. A key feature of markets such as this is that value attaches to participants’ individual price/order information and it is therefore important to control access to or distribution of such information. This was achieved in the invention by providing, in a system comprising a central host computer and a network of client computers, a central “cross-mapped permissions filter”, which uses permission data associated with each of the clients to filter data received from and transmitted to them. This meant that, typically, each client will see a different market view depending on their associated permission sets. In applying the four-step test for excluded matter set out in Aerotel Ltd v Telco Holdings Ltd and Macrossan’s Application [2006] EWCA Civ 1371, the Hearing Officer found that the contribution resided in the application in a multiuser system of permission set cross-mapping at the server to facilitate and permit appropriate data communication between client terminals. Being implemented on conventional hardware, this was held to be no more than a computer program . To the extent that the contribution might be reframed to take account of the objective of facilitating and permitting appropriate data communication, this could not extend beyond a business method and the application was consequently refused.

Full decision O/123/07 53Kb