Patent decision

BL number

O/754/19

Concerning rights in

GB 1603975.2

Hearing Officer

Mr P Mason

Decision date

10 December 2019

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Lenovo (Singapore) Pte. Ltd

Provisions discussed

Patents Act 1977 Section 1(2)(c) and (d)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The application relates to purchasing one or more items using contactless payment devices such as credit cards, debit cards, key fobs and smartcards that use radio-frequency identification for making secure payment. In the invention, the user presents multiple contactless payment devices to a reader each relating to a separate payment account. The payment is split automatically between a plurality of payment accounts according to one or more user preferences.

The Hearing Officer applied the four-step approach set out in the Court of Appeal judgment in Aerotel and considered the AT&T signposts. He decided that the contribution made by the invention is not technical in nature. He found that the contribution falls solely within excluded subject matter as no more than a program for a computer and a method for doing business as such. The application was refused.

Full decision O/754/19 298Kb