Patent decision

BL number

O/483/13

Concerning rights in

GB1201771.1

Hearing Officer

Mr P Slater

Decision date

29 November 2013

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

H J N Duckworth et al

Provisions discussed

PA 1977 Section 1(2)

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

None

Summary

Retailers often use a variety of sales promotions involving discounted prices, loyalty points, gift vouchers and prize draw entries to encourage customers to purchase their products and to reward them for their loyalty. The present invention provides an alternative to conventional prize draw systems whereby eligible customers receive prize draw entries which are linked to a corresponding entry in an official government or state run lottery such as the National Lottery. This provides a greater incentive to customers to buy the retailer’s products as they will have the opportunity to win much larger prizes albeit with a smaller chance of winning. The invention includes a so-called “promotional prize draw management system” which provides an interface between the retailer’s own prize draw systems and the official lottery’s computer system. The promotional prize draw management system provides secure access to the lottery system and is programmed to obtain lottery entries which are used to generate corresponding prize draw entries for the retailer that are then distributed to eligible customers. The promotional prize draw management system also receives the lottery results, processes winning payments and performs necessary accounting functions.

The Hearing Officer considered the four-step test in Aerotel/Macrossan in the light of the Symbian judgment, and found the contribution to relate to a business method and a computer program as such, and having found no technical contribution refused the application under Section 18(3).