Patent decision

BL number

O/512/12

Concerning rights in

GB0915612.6

Hearing Officer

Mr B Buchanan

Decision date

28 December 2012

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Canon Europa N.V.

Provisions discussed

Patents Act 1977 Section 1(2)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The invention relates to a print system that enables the communication and display of meta data accounting tags for user selection and association with a print job, which permits the analysis and accounting of print jobs. Accounting tags may relate to cost centres, and are arranged on ordered levels, for example in a tree structure, to represent departments, teams and so on. For a given selected accounting tag on a particular level, only a subset of all others available will be relevant for further selection. Therefore by arranging the tags on levels, as opposed to one simple list, fewer tags need to be communicated, displayed and are available for selection at a time, because only those which are relevant are used. In a network printing environment, this means less meta data is transmitted and so network traffic is reduced.

The Hearing Officer considered the four-step test in Aerotel/Macrossan in the light of the Symbian judgment, and the AT&T signposts. He found that the invention as claimed is excluded under section 1(2) because it relates solely to excluded matter; namely a method for doing business, the presentation of information and a program for a computer as such.