Patent decision

BL number

O/749/21

Concerning rights in

GB1805684.6

Hearing Officer

Mr B Micklewright

Decision date

11 October 2021

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Imagination Technologies Limited

Provisions discussed

Patents Act 1977 sections 1(1)(d), 1(2)

Keywords

Excluded fields (allowed)

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The invention related to evaluating a mathematical function using a polynomial block to evaluate the required mathematical function to a first level of accuracy, the result of this evaluation then being used to initialise a CORDIC algorithm in an associated CORDIC block in order to refine the approximation of the mathematical function to the required level of accuracy. The claimed invention was restricted to implementing these two steps in fixed logic circuitry. The hearing officer construed the claim as relating in substance to a hardware arrangement and determined that the identified contribution made a technical contribution and did not therefore relate to either a program for a computer as such or a mathematical method as such. He therefore referred the application back to the examiner for further processing.

Full decision O/749/21 134Kb