Patent decision

BL number

O/163/07

Concerning rights in

GB0427256.3

Hearing Officer

Mr J Elbro

Decision date

8 June 2007

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Genego Inc

Provisions discussed

PA Act 1977 Section 1(2)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The application claimed a method of identifying drug targets by creating a map of the metabolism of an organism based on metabolic pathways and comparing differences between non-disease and disease states of the organism using this map. Applying the Aerotel/Macrossan test the hearing officer found the contribution of the invention to be excluded under section 1(2) as a computer program because it consisted only of data processing. An argument that there was a “real world” effect of identifying a new drug target was rejected as there was no new drug target claimed - the claims were solely directed to a method which might identify a new target if it existed.

Full decision O/163/07 32Kb