Patent decision

BL number

O/543/15

Concerning rights in

GB1212403.8 & GB1418078.0

Hearing Officer

Mr P Slater

Decision date

19 November 2015

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Swipestation Ltd

Provisions discussed

PA 1977 Section 1(2)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The invention relates a system for the redemption of promotional vouchers. The system includes a voucher terminal where a user may present a voucher they have received through whatever means, and the voucher terminal is able to scan said voucher and reproduce it as a standardised printed voucher which can be presented for redemption at a point of sale (POS) device. Promotional vouchers can come in many different forms ranging from the conventional printed vouchers in newspapers to those which are printed on the side of a drinks can, or those that take the form of an image, email or webpage on the screen of a smart phone. It is common place for retail outlets to retain vouchers following redemption for reconciliation of sales at the close of business. Vouchers are therefore commonly stored in the drawer of the POS device at the checkout. However, this presents a problem, when the vouchers are in a non-standard e.g. printed on the side of a drinks can and cannot be placed in the POS drawer as they will not fit. Furthermore, where the voucher is displayed on the screen of a smart phone, the customer may be reluctant to hand it over for security reasons. The invention solves this problem by scanning and replacing any non-standardised voucher with a standardised voucher of a size which fits within the drawer of an associated POS device.

The Hearing Officer considered the four-step test in Aerotel/Macrossan in the light of the Symbian judgment, and found the contribution to relate to a business method as such, and having found no technical contribution refused the application under Section 18(3).

Full decision O/543/15 83Kb