Patent decision

BL number

O/719/19

Concerning rights in

GB1813366.0

Hearing Officer

Mr S Brown

Decision date

26 November 2019

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Beijing Didi Infinity Technology and Development Co Ltd

Provisions discussed

PA 1977 Section 1(2)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The application is concerned with providing a transportation service comprising one or more taxis or private cars. A processor receives a transport request from a user and estimates both a time it will take to fulfil the request and a hypothetical time to fulfil the request if it were switched to a car pool. The user is then provided with a recommendation to switch to a carpool service if that time is shorter.

The Hearing Officer applied the reasoning in Aerotel/Macrossan and decided that the contribution made by the invention fell solely within excluded matter. He also considered the AT&T/Cvon signposts, as modified by HTC v Apple, and Halliburton Energy Services Inc’s Applications and concluded that the contribution did not have a relevant technical effect. The application was refused as being no more than a program for a computer and a method of doing business as such.

Full decision O/719/19 105Kb