Patent decision

BL number

O/184/05

Concerning rights in

GB 0312470.8

Hearing Officer

Mr P Slater

Decision date

30 June 2005

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Koizumi Norihiro

Provisions discussed

PA 1977 Section 1 (2)(c)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The application relates to, what is effectively, an online address book in which people can register their new address, for example, their e-mail address, postal address or URL alongside their old one. This is then stored in a remote database. Anyone wishing to contact that person at their new address can do so by submitting a request to the remote database which includes the old address. The new address will then be disclosed to the enquirer based upon certain predetermined rules, or the addressee may, under certain conditions, need to be contacted to obtain permission for the address to be disclosed. In certain circumstances, where an old e-mail address or URL is used an automatic enquiry may be made to ascertain the new address.

In refusing the application, the hearing officer found that the invention concerned the management and administration of an online address book and as such fell within the business method exclusion. He also concluded that the invention was nothing more than a series of computer programs running on what appears to be a conventional, Internet based network and as such it also fell within the computer program exclusion. The hearing officer went on to find that the invention did not provide the technical contribution required to make an otherwise excluded invention patentable.

The invention provides a 'new tool' using conventional hardware to automate a business process. The resulting increase in accuracy, reliability and speed is just the sort of effect one would expect from computerisation.

Full decision O/184/05 38Kb