Patent decision

BL number

O/500/19

Concerning rights in

GB 1602421.8, GB 1602422.6 & GB 1602423.4

Hearing Officer

Mr S Brown

Decision date

28 August 2019

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Testplant Europe Limited

Provisions discussed

PA 1977 Section 1(2)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The three applications each provide a method for establishing a test program, running on a first computing apparatus, that tests another computer program running on a second computing apparatus. The difference between the applications is the way in which a sequence of actions is generated by the test program and applied to the system under test. In GB‘423.4 all possible actions are tested except for actions omitted by a precondition. In GB‘422.6 the sequence of actions takes into account previous actions in the current, or earlier, tests. In GB‘421.8 test description sections are associated with each action.

The Hearing Officer applied the reasoning in Aerotel/Macrossan and decided that the contribution made by each invention fell solely within excluded matter. He also considered the AT&T/Cvon signposts, as modified by HTC v Apple, and concluded that the contributions did not have relevant technical effects. All three applications were refused as being no more than programs for a computer as such.

Full decision O/500/19 410Kb