Patent decision

BL number

O/039/07

Concerning rights in

GB 0215853.3

Hearing Officer

Mrs S E Chalmers

Decision date

2 February 2007

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Provisions discussed

PA 1977 sections 1(2)(c), 1(2)(d)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The application relates to an apparatus for enabling a user to extract salient information from a text without having to read the whole document. In particular, the invention provides the user with a visual representation of a topic or topics within a text, eg by highlighting, so that it is not necessary to display a lot of text. A user can therefore glean the gist of the text and see easily which part contains the information he or she wishes to extract. 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 and the presentation of information. 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/039/07 37Kb