British
and Irish Legal Information Institute
Freely Available British and Irish Public Legal Information
[
Home]
[
Databases]
[
World Law]
[
Multidatabase Search]
[
Help]
[
Feedback]
United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions
You are here:
BAILII >>
Databases >>
United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions >>
John Quentin Phillips (Patent) [2002] UKIntelP o07202 (14 February 2002)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIntelP/2002/o07202.html
Cite as:
[2002] UKIntelP o7202,
[2002] UKIntelP o07202
[
New search]
[
Printable PDF version]
[
Help]
John Quentin Phillips [2002] UKIntelP o07202 (14 February 2002)
For the whole decision click here: o07202
Patent decision
- BL number
- O/072/02
- Concerning rights in
- GB 9913529.5
- Hearing Officer
- Mr B Westerman
- Decision date
- 14 February 2002
- Person(s) or Company(s) involved
- John Quentin Phillips
- Provisions discussed
- PA1977 Section 1(1)(b), Section 3
- Keywords
- Inventive step
- Related Decisions
- None
Summary
The invention relates to a handheld computer games console, similar to the Nintendo Gameboy®, having a removable portion which includes both the program and the control switches for playing the game. By combining the control switches and the program in a single removable portion, the invention enables the designer to provide input controls that are optimised for a particular game.
The fundamental concept of the invention was shown to lack novelty having regard to three earlier patent documents, but the applicant amended the claims to introduce a feature that was not part of the original claims, ie. the use of an interrupt to control the transfer of input data from the removable portion to the main processor. The examiner objected that such use of interrupts was common general knowledge, citing three examples of earlier patent documents based on a partial supplementary search, and maintained an inventive step objection. The application was found to lack inventive step, but the opportunity to amend was given.