Patent decision

BL number

O/0673/26

Hearing Officer

Mr N Dowell

Decision date

29 July 2026

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

FLIR Belgium BV

Provisions discussed

Sections 1 and 3

Keywords

Inventive step

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The application relates to a virtual dial gauge where a segment of the gauge is rendered on a user display, so that a first range of values (including a current value) is displayed but other segments of the dial’s total range are not shown. The hearing officer applied the approach set out in the judgment of the Supreme Court in EPAI to claim 1 concluding that several of the features the examiner identified as not contributing to the technical character of the invention as a whole, do contribute. As a result of filtering out those features, inventive step had not been fully considered, and the application was remitted to the examiner for further processing.

Full decision O/0673/26 408Kb