Patent decision

BL number

O/180/19

Concerning rights in

GB1815310.6

Hearing Officer

Mr B Buchanan

Decision date

4 April 2019

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Gelliner Limited

Provisions discussed

PA 1977 section 1(2)(c)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

O/179/19

Summary

The invention relates to simplifying bill payment e.g. at a restaurant, particularly when splitting the bill, by making a bill computer-readable and facilitating payment of portions of the bill separately. The central concept involves analysing a textual representation of a bill from a POS device and augmenting the file to include data representing a non-textual representation (e.g. a 2D matrix barcode or QR code) of merchant and billing data, including itemisation data, which is then sent to an output device e.g. for display on a screen. Using a computing device which may be a mobile phone with a scanner (e.g. a camera), a customer scans the output to detect the non-textual representation and decodes it. The computing device then displays the decoded bill information to the customer. The customer may initiate payment of a portion of the bill by requesting initiation of payment via a server. Splitting the bill among more than one customer, without transacting directly with a POS, is therefore facilitated.

The Hearing Officer followed the four-step test set out in Aerotel and applied the AT&T signposts as reformulated in HTC. He concluded that the contribution did not provide the required technical contribution and related solely to a program for a computer and a method for doing business as such. The application was refused.

Full decision O/180/19 304Kb