Patent decision

BL number

O/026/16

Concerning rights in

GB1109923.1

Hearing Officer

Mrs C L Davies

Decision date

19 January 2016

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

The Boeing Company

Provisions discussed

PA 1977 Sections 1(1)(b) and 14(3)

Keywords

Inventive step, Sufficiency

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The application relates to a method for discarding a rogue component from an aircraft system. The method requires scanning a first component from a plurality of components for an identifier, and determining an operating parameter uniquely related to the first component from a history of data, such as an average operating lifetime. The operating parameter is compared to a baseline that is not unique to the first component but which is representative of a standard component of a same type as the first component. The severity of deviation of the operating parameter from the baseline is used to determine whether the first component is a rogue component. The user is presented with a ranking of the first component with respect to the plurality of components based upon the severity of deviation.

It was found that the disclosure of only a small number of example operating parameters did not mean that the claims were insufficient due to excessive claim breadth. Furthermore, it was also accepted that the claims were not classically insufficient as a person skilled in the art would understand how to determine the example operating parameters from a history of data, even though explicit instructions on how to do so were not provided in the description. The Windsurfing/Pozzoli test was applied in relation to inventive step, and it was found that claim 1 was inventive over both of the prior art documents cited by the examiner.

As there were no other matters outstanding the application was remitted to the examiner for grant.