Patent decision

BL number

O/283/11

Concerning rights in

GB 0917353.5

Hearing Officer

Mrs S E Chalmers

Decision date

11 August 2011

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Compurants Ltd

Provisions discussed

PA 1977 Section 1(2)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The application relates to a computer-controlled interactive food and/or drink ordering system that can prompt a customer to place an order. In conventional restaurants, a waiter will present a customer with a menu and then return a few minutes later to take his order. On some occasions, the customer may not have made up his mind and the waiter may need to return a number of times to prompt the customer before an order is placed which causes an undesirable delay. The application is therefore concerned with encouraging customers to “get on with it” in the context of a “one-hour turnaround restaurant”. The invention provides an ordering system which includes a computer controlled projector that projects images of a user interface onto the surface of a table, the images including selection options for ordering. The system is operable to prompt the customer when it has determined that the customer has not interacted with the ordering system for a defined period of time.

The Hearing Officer applied the four part test set out in the Aerotel and Macrossan judgment and found the contribution made by the invention fell solely within excluded matter. She also considered the Court of Appeal decision in Symbian and the decision in AT&T & Cvon and concluded that the contribution did not have a relevant technical effect. The application was refused as being a program for a computer as such.