Patent decision

BL number

O/301/12

Concerning rights in

GB1001438.9

Hearing Officer

Dr J E Porter

Decision date

6 August 2012

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Company Limited

Provisions discussed

Patents Act 1977 Section 1(2)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The invention concerns language-based interaction with a virtual pet. It involves processing natural language input from a user and obtaining the user’s language characteristics from a database. These characteristics are adjusted in light of the processed input, with the result that the virtual pet keeps learning the language characteristics of the user, and employs language in its responses which embodies those characteristics.

The hearing officer followed the steps set out in Aerotel in order to determine whether the invention was excluded from patentability. Having rejected arguments that the contribution lay in a new system or new configuration of hardware and software, he found that the contribution lay in software which provided better user interaction with a virtual entity, by enabling the continuous learning of the language characteristics of the user and by generating responses to the user which reflected those language characteristics. Having considered the AT&T/CVON signposts, he found that this was not a contribution that was technical in nature. The application was refused.