Patent decision

BL number

O/259/22

Concerning rights in

GB1918881.2

Hearing Officer

Mr B Buchanan

Decision date

25 March 2022

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Hitachi, Ltd.

Provisions discussed

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

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The claimed invention relates to identifying a medical institution having available resources to execute a predicted diagnosis and treatment flow for a specific patient. The invention consists of a flow prediction model which includes a patient classification prediction model generated by machine learning. Patient state information such as present symptoms are used to determine a patient classification. The patient classification is used to determine the predicted flow, and in conjunction with medical institution resource availability information, suitable institutions are identified and presented at a terminal. The Agents referred to EPC Guidelines for Examination and argued that automated medical diagnosis served a technical purpose. The Hearing Officer applied the four step Aerotel/Macrossan test to determine whether there was a technical contribution and considered the AT&T signposts as the Examiner had applied them. The contribution was found not to provide a method of diagnosis or to include machine learning. It did not 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/259/22 329Kb