Patent decision

BL number

O/076/08

Concerning rights in

GB0614467.9 and GB0705155.0

Hearing Officer

Mr A Bartlett

Decision date

14 March 2008

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Blacklight Power Inc

Provisions discussed

PA 1977 Sections 1(1), 1(2)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused), Inventive step

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The applications concerned a method and system for providing a new and more accurate way of describing the properties of electrons in atoms or ions (such as their energy levels) and representing those properties on a display.

Having deferred consideration of inventive step, the hearing officer applied the four step test set out in the Aerotel/Macrossan judgment and found that the contribution resided in the theorem for describing the properties of electrons in atoms and ions and a computer program for generating and displaying the results of the equations representing that theorem. The contribution was found to fall solely within excluded matter being a combination of a scientific theory and a computer program (and a mathematical method).

Full decision O/076/08 58Kb