Patent decision
- BL number
- O/455/17
- Concerning rights in
- GB1103056.6
- Hearing Officer
- Dr J E Porter
- Decision date
- 21 September 2017
- Person(s) or Company(s) involved
- Fisher-Rosemount Systems, Inc.
- Provisions discussed
- Patents Act 1977 section 1(2)
- Keywords
- Excluded fields (refused)
- Related Decisions
- None
Summary
The application relates to the operation of a graphical display/interface in a process control system for running a plant, such as a chemical plant. The operator monitors the operation of the plant using the graphical display, takes action as a result of data being provided, and provides programming updates to the distributed elements of the control system.
The invention identifies a series of relationships between elements of the process control system - for example, between a heater and the pump which supplies it with material, or between the pump and a document setting out its safe operating parameters - and provides them to the process control system. The relationships are then associated with, and used to connect, graphical representations of the elements within the display, so that a user can select a graphic on their display and be directed between the related elements as required for navigation.
The hearing officer followed the steps set out in Aerotel in order to determine whether the invention was excluded from patentability. He concluded that the contribution made by the invention was a method and system, within the graphical user interface of a process control system, for dynamically providing information which enables the linking of graphical representations of process entities with the graphical representations of related entities, so that a user may be navigated between entity representations within the graphical user interface. This was found to be no more than a program for a computer and the presentation of information. In particular, it was not an improvement at the operating or architectural level of the computer system.
Two auxiliary requests were also considered. One included an additional feature of local caching of relevant data. The other explicitly included the final step of controlling the process plant. Neither was held to change the contribution being made by the invention, and so neither was allowable.
Full decision O/455/17 
134Kb
