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 PDF document58Kb