Patent decision

BL number
O/116/12
Concerning rights in
GB1013441.9
Hearing Officer
Dr J E Porter
Decision date
12 March 2012
Person(s) or Company(s) involved
Logined BV
Provisions discussed
Patents Act 1977 section 1(2)
Keywords
Excluded fields (refused)
Related Decisions
None

Summary

The invention is concerned with optimising the use of a number of connected computing resources, particularly in relation to the processing of large amounts of data or information associated with computer modelling of an oilfield or hydrocarbon reservoir. The devices are defined as primary and secondary nodes and are connected by a peer-to-peer network. An oilfield services application running at a primary node identifies a particular operation which can be performed at a secondary node, which results in an object created on the basis of stored seismic data. The object is then accessed and integrated into the workflow at the primary node.

The hearing officer followed the steps set out in Aerotel in order to determine whether the invention was excluded from patentability. He concluded that the alleged contribution made by the invention lay in the bringing of seismic data into an oilfield services application in a particular way, where the application involves an earth model running at a primary node. Having considered Halliburton and the AT&T/CVON signposts, he found that this contribution fell solely within excluded matter, as it was no more than a program for a computer. In particular, he found that the computer devices were not operating in a new way, nor with improved speed and reliability - and contrasted the position with that in Symbian. He also found that the contribution did not overcome the problem by improving the functioning of the devices, so that they functioned faster in processing the data. Instead, it circumvented the problem by sharing the data processing tasks between conventional devices in a particular way.

Full decision O/116/12 PDF document79Kb