Patent decision

BL number

O/071/15

Concerning rights in

GB1122376.5

Hearing Officer

Mr S Brown

Decision date

16 February 2015

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Avaya Inc

Provisions discussed

PA 1977 Section 1(1) & 1(2)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused), Inventive step, Novelty

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The application relates to a method for assigning a customer service agent to a customer when, for example, the customer contacts a call centre. The Hearing Officer applied the Aerotel test and decided that the contribution made by the invention fell solely within excluded matter. He also considered the decisions in AT&T Knowledge Ventures LP and CVON and HTC Europe Co. Ltd. v Apple Inc. and concluded that the contribution did not have a relevant technical effect. The application was refused as no more than some combination of a business method and a program for a computer as such.

The Hearing Officer also considered the issue of novelty and concluded that the application was novel over the disclosure of US7231034 B1.

Finally, the Hearing Officer considered inventive step and, following the steps set out in Windsurfing (as restated in Pozzoli), concluded that the invention lacked an inventive step over the disclosure of US7231034 B1.

Full decision O/071/15 114Kb