Patent decision

BL number

O/0865/23

Concerning rights in

GB2216277.0

Hearing Officer

Mr B Buchanan

Decision date

13 September 2023

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Geo-Pro-Teq IP Pty Ltd

Provisions discussed

Patents Act 1977, section 1(2)(c)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

O/1033/22

Summary

The claimed invention relates to minimising the risk of harm to a problem gambler and maintaining privacy by sending an instruction, including an anonymous identifier, to allow or deny access to the problem gambler to one or more gaming systems. The applicant argued that the UK IPO and EPO approaches to assessing patentability should be consistent and that the approach taken to date was flawed; there was a change to the technical operation of the system limiting overall functional operation of the system, which provided the required technical effect. They also referred to arguments made previously in writing. The Hearing Officer considered the argument to adopt the EPO approach but concluded he was obliged to follow the four step Aerotel/Macrossan test to determine whether there was a technical contribution and also opted to considered the AT&T signposts. The contribution was found to include determining whether a user was a problem gambler, determining a unique identification for the user and sending information to a server to determine whether access is to be allowed. The contribution was found not to provide the required technical effect and the claimed invention was found to relate solely to a program for a computer and a method for doing business as such, so the application did not meet the requirements of section 1(2)(c). The application was refused under section 18(3).

Full decision O/0865/23 582Kb