Patent decision

BL number
O/209/07
Concerning rights in
GB0325145.1
Hearing Officer
Mrs S E Chalmers
Decision date
30 July 2007
Person(s) or Company(s) involved
Symbian Ltd
Provisions discussed
PA 1977 Section 1(2)
Keywords
Excluded fields (refused)
Related Decisions
None

Summary

The application relates to a method of operating a computing device to access data held in a dynamic link library (DLL) which has two parts, each part containing a number of functions. In operation, an executable program directly links to the functions in the first part through the ordinal numbers. To access the functions in the second part, the executable program links to the DLL indirectly through an interface which comprises a further library containing additional functions. The provision of the interface enables an executable program to access the functionality available on the computing device, regardless of any additions or amendments made to the available functionality by a third party. The hearing officer applied the four part test set out in the Aerotel and Macrossan judgment, found the invention to be excluded as a computer program, and refused the application.

Full decision O/209/07 PDF document63Kb