Patent decision
- BL number
- O/123/07
- Concerning rights in
- GB0304637.2
- Hearing Officer
- Mr A C Howard
- Decision date
- 11 May 2007
- Person(s) or Company(s) involved
- Swapstream Limited
- Provisions discussed
- PA Act 1977 Section 1(2)(c)
- Keywords
- Excluded fields (refused)
- Related Decisions
- None
Summary
The invention related to a method of facilitating the operation of markets for financial instruments such as “SWAPS”. A key feature of markets such as this is that value attaches to participants’ individual price/order information and it is therefore important to control access to or distribution of such information. This was achieved in the invention by providing, in a system comprising a central host computer and a network of client computers, a central “cross-mapped permissions filter”, which uses permission data associated with each of the clients to filter data received from and transmitted to them. This meant that, typically, each client will see a different market view depending on their associated permission sets. In applying the four-step test for excluded matter set out in Aerotel Ltd v Telco Holdings Ltd and Macrossan’s Application [2006] EWCA Civ 1371, the Hearing Officer found that the contribution resided in the application in a multiuser system of permission set cross-mapping at the server to facilitate and permit appropriate data communication between client terminals. Being implemented on conventional hardware, this was held to be no more than a computer program . To the extent that the contribution might be reframed to take account of the objective of facilitating and permitting appropriate data communication, this could not extend beyond a business method and the application was consequently refused.
Full decision O/123/07 53Kb