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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions >> United Parcel Services of America Inc. (Patent) [2007] UKIntelP o34007 (19 November 2007)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIntelP/2007/o34007.html
Cite as: [2007] UKIntelP o34007
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United Parcel Services of America Inc. [2007] UKIntelP o34007 (19 November 2007)
For the whole decision click here: o34007
Patent decision
- BL number
- O/340/07
- Concerning rights in
- GB0518581.4
- Hearing Officer
- Mr A Bartlett
- Decision date
- 19 November 2007
- Person(s) or Company(s) involved
- United Parcel Services of America Inc.
- Provisions discussed
- PA 1977 Section 1(2)(c)
- Keywords
- Excluded fields (refused)
- Related Decisions
- None
Summary
The invention relates to a system for populating the fields of a web form by mapping data from a user’s contact list held in personal information manager (PIM) software to appropriate fields of the form. The applicant’s agent contended that the application was patentable because the invention provided a new result in the form of easier input of data which then formed the contribution. He also contended that the contribution of a newly introduced later claim was a new arrangement of hardware characterised by the way information was entered. The Hearing Officer applied the four step Aerotel/Macrossan test and concluded that in either case the hardware claimed was conventional. The contribution was therefore really what the system was programmed to do, and the Hearing Officer consequently decided that the contribution falls solely within the computer program exclusion.