Patent decision

BL number

O/417/10

Concerning rights in

GB 0604820.1

Hearing Officer

Miss J Pullen

Decision date

1 December 2010

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

I2 Technologies US, Inc.

Provisions discussed

PA 1977 Section 1(2)(c)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

GB 0604622.1, GB 0604769.0

Summary

The methods, systems and computer programs described in the application are concerned with the management of a supply chain and particularly with controlling access of trading partners in the supply chain to particular stages or "states" of the supply chain, in particular the trading partner can view the transaction in a given state, the state being for instance when a buyer is tendering or later on when a buyer is committed. The trading partners in the supply chain could be customer or supplier and manufacturer, buyer or a third-party.

The administrator of the supply chain management system, a trading partner or a vendor can use the user interface to enter information into a state model which defines how particular trading partners can interact with the transaction state, the state model either being an existing stored example or one that can be customised by the trading partner.

In coming to her decision the Hearing Officer considered the decision in Symbian and

analysed the claims using the Areotel/Macrossan four step test. The Hearing Officer found that the contribution related to a method of doing business, that the contribution was not technical and was therefore excluded under Section 1(2)(c) of the Act.