Patent decision

BL number

O/420/19

Concerning rights in

GB1513359.8

Hearing Officer

Mr B Buchanan

Decision date

22 July 2019

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Adobe Systems Incorporated

Provisions discussed

PA 1977 section 1(2)(c)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

O/360/19, O/421/19

Summary

The present invention relates to improving marketing activity, by making suggestions for ways to process content which have been successful in the past. Within a digital environment, which may include an online community of users, tracking data from previous activity deployment can enable marketers to identify content processing suited to the current marketing activity being created and consequently to make suggestions for processing available to content creators. This is achieved by comparing content creation metadata corresponding to selected potential marketing characteristics with content creation metadata used in prior marketing activities based on tracked deployment.

The Hearing Officer followed the four step Aerotel test to determine whether there was a technical contribution. He applied the AT&T signposts as modified in HTC and took account of Halliburton. The contribution was not found to provide the required technical effect and he found that the claimed invention related solely to a method for doing business and a program for a computer 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/420/19 282Kb