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United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions >> Winklevoss Technologies LLC (Patent) [2006] UKIntelP o24606 (5 September 2006)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIntelP/2006/o24606.html
Cite as: [2006] UKIntelP o24606
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Winklevoss Technologies LLC [2006] UKIntelP o24606 (5 September 2006)
For the whole decision click here: o24606
Patent decision
- BL number
- O/246/06
- Concerning rights in
- GB 0328766.1
- Hearing Officer
- Mr R C Kennell
- Decision date
- 5 September 2006
- Person(s) or Company(s) involved
- Winklevoss Technologies LLC
- Provisions discussed
- PA 1977 section 1(2)
- Keywords
- Excluded fields (refused)
- Related Decisions
- None
Summary
The application related to a system and method in which the information to perform calculations for defined benefit pensions schemes was encoded using an expression language and stored for later access. Using the two-step CFPH test, the applicant alleged that the advance lay in an overall framework which was configured differently at a technical level so as to avoid the need, if the calculation rules changed, to generate new computer program code in a high level programming language and subsequently compile that code. (It was not disputed that in the light of recent case law a technical contribution was still required). The applicant contended that (i) use of a repository to store the encoded data for later retrieval was part of the advance over the prior art by analogy with the "problem and solution" approach of the European Patent Office, and (ii) limitation of the claims to calculating benefits was arbitrary and should be ignored following Sohei (EPO T/0769/92).
The hearing officer disagreed, considering the advance to lie the use of an expression language to encode data in a system for performing benefit calculations. Distinguishing Inpro Licensing SARL [2006] EWHC 70 (Pat), [2006] RPC 20, Sun Microsystems Inc BL O/057/06 and ARM Limited BL O/066/06, he considered this to lie at the programming rather than the technical level since it was not clear why the use of the expression language should avoid the need for recoding as distinct from making it quicker and easier. Even if that argument was wrong the invention would still be excluded as a mental act, business method or mathematical method.