Patent decision

BL number
O/319/07
Concerning rights in
GB0600407.1
Hearing Officer
Mr R C Kennell
Decision date
31 October 2007
Person(s) or Company(s) involved
Andrew Cumming
Provisions discussed
PA 1977 Section 1(2)
Keywords
Excluded fields (refused)
Related Decisions
None

Summary

The application related to the modelling of unknown data values for rates of financial instruments and the detection of known rates which were too extreme to be relied on. Applying the Aerotel test ([2006] EWCA Civ 1371) and refusing the application, the hearing officer held the contribution of the invention to be a mathematical technique, irrespective of the form of the claims (method, system and computer program product); this failed the third step of the test because it related solely to a mathematical method. This sufficed to dispose of the matter and the hearing officer made no decision on whether the contribution was also excluded as a computer program, a business method or a mental act.

Full decision O/319/07 PDF document44Kb