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Decisions of the Boards of Appeal (by decision date)

This section lists a selection of the decisions of the Boards of Appeal that are related to computer-implemented inventions. The decisions provided here can be sorted and filtered by means of the tabs provided above.

Currently, all decisions provided through this website are listed and they are sorted by the date of the decision. The latest decisions appear first.

T 1002/92 - Queueing system/PETTERSSON (abridged)

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Date of the Decision: 
1994-07-06
Headnote: 
In proceedings before the opposition divisions, late-filed facts, evidence and related arguments, which go beyond the “indication of the facts, evidence and arguments” presented in the notice of opposition pursuant to Rule 55© EPC in support of the grounds of opposition on which the opposition is based, should only exceptionally be admitted into the proceedings if prima facie, there are clear reasons to suspect that such late-filed material would prejudice the maintenance of the European patent. In proceedings before the boards of appeal, new facts, evidence and related arguments, which go beyond the “indication of facts, evidence and arguments” presented in the notice of opposition pursuant to Rule 55© EPC in support of the grounds of opposition on which the opposition is based, should only very exceptionally be admitted into the proceedings in the appropriate exercise of the board’s discretion, if such new material is prima facie highly relevant in the sense that it can reasonably be expected to change the eventual result and is thus highly likely to prejudice maintenance of the European patent; and having regard also to other relevant factors in the case, in particular whether the patentee objects to the admissibility of the new material and the reasons for any such objection, and the degree of procedural complication that its admission is likely to cause.
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Decision: Decision in T 1002/92 - Queueing system/PETTERSSON (abridged)

T 769/92 - General-purpose management system/SOHEI

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Date of the Decision: 
1994-05-31
Headnote: 
An invention comprising functional features implemented by software (computer programs) is not excluded from patentability under Article 52(2)©, (3) EPC, if technical considerations concerning particulars of the solution of the problem the invention solves are required in order to carry out that same invention. Such technical considerations lend a technical nature to the invention in that they imply a technical problem to be solved by (implicit) technical features. An invention of this kind does not pertain to a computer program as such under Article 52(3). Non-exclusion from patentability cannot be destroyed by an additional feature which as such would itself be excluded, as in the present case features referring to management systems and methods which may fall under the “methods for doing business” excluded from patentability under Article 52(2)©, (3) EPC (following established case law according to which a mix of features, some of which are excluded under Article 52(2) and (3) EPC and some of which are not so excluded, may be patentable [in contrast to recent case law concerning inventions excluded by Article 52(4) EPC, cf. T 820/92, to be published, according to which one feature excluded under Article 52(4) EPC suffices for the whole claim to be excluded from patentability]).
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Decision: Decision in T 769/92 - General-purpose management system/SOHEI

T 110/90 - Editable document form/IBM

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Date of the Decision: 
1993-04-15
Headnote: 
Control items (e.g. printer control items) included in a text which is represented in the form of digital data are characteristic for the text- processing system in which they occur in that they are characteristic for the technical internal working of that system. Therefore, such control items represent technical features of the text-processing system in which they occur (Following decision T 163/85 - Colour Television Signal/BBC, OJ EPO 1990, 379). Consequently, transforming control items which represent technical features belonging to one text-processing system into those belonging to another text-processing system represents a method having technical character. If a method of transforming text represented as digital data according to which a source document, cast in a first editable form including a plurality of input control items, is transformed into a target document, cast in a second editable form including a plurality of output control items compatible therewith, is implemented by an appropriately programmed computer, the steps of that method represent rather the algorithm on which the computer program is based than a computer program as such and the program must be considered to be the technical means for carrying out the (technical) method (following decision T 208/84 - Computer-related invention/VICOM, OJ EPO 1987, 14, reason 12).
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Decision: Decision in T 110/90 - Editable document form/IBM

T 854/90 - IBM

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Date of the Decision: 
1992-03-19
Headnote: 
The proper interpretation of the word “inventions” in Article 52(1) EPC requires a claimed subject-matter or activity to have a technical character and thus in principle to be industrially applicable, if it is to be patentable – following decisions T 208/84 - Computer-related invention/VICOM (OJ EPO 1987, 4) and T 22/85 (OJ EPO 1990, 12). A claim which, when taken as a whole, is essentially a business operation, does not have a technical character and is not a claim to a patentable invention within the meaning of Article 52(1) EPC, even though the claimed method includes steps which include a technical component. The true nature of the claimed subject-matter remains the same, even though some technical means are used to perform it.
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Decision: Decision in T 854/90 - IBM

T 209/91

in
Date of the Decision: 
1991-05-23
Summary and Comments: 

A claim has to be assessed as a whole. If it makes use of both technical and non-technical means the use of non-technical means does not detract from the technical character of the overall teaching. The EPC does not require that a patentable invention be exclusively or largely of a technical nature, in other words it does not prohibit the patenting of inventions consisting of a mix of technical and non-technical elements.

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Decision: Decision in T 209/91

T 163/85 - Colour Television Signal/BBC

in
Date of the Decision: 
1989-03-14
Headnote: 
A colour television signal characterised by technical features of the system in which it occurs, i.e. in which it is being generated and/or received does not fall within the exclusions of Article 52(2)(d) and (3) EPC and is regarded as an invention within the meaning of Article 52(1) EPC.
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Decision: Decision in T 163/85 - Colour Television Signal/BBC

T 38/86

in
Date of the Decision: 
1989-02-14
Headnote: 
A person who is detecting and replacing linguistic expressions which exceed a predetermined understandability level in a list of linguistic expressions using only his skill and judgment is performing mental acts within the meaning of Article 52(2)© EPC. Accordingly, schemes, rules and methods used in performing them are not inventions within the meaning of Article 52(1) EPC. Since according to Article 52(3) EPC patentability is excluded only to the extent to which the patent application relates to subject-matter or activities summarised in Article 52(2) as such, it appears to be the intention of the EPC to permit patenting in those cases in which the invention involves some contribution to the art in a field not excluded from patentability. The use of technical means for carrying out a method for performing mental acts, partly or entirely without human intervention, may, having regard to Article 52(3) EPC, render such a method a technical process or method and therefore an invention within the meaning of Article 52(1) EPC. However, if the technical implementation of such a method is obvious to a person skilled in the technical art, once the steps of the method for performing the mental acts have been defined, so that there is no inventive contribution in a field not excluded from patentability under Article 52(2)© EPC, such method does not involve an inventive step within the meaning of Article 56 EPC. If a claim for an apparatus (here: a text processing system) for carrying out a method does not specify any technical features beyond those already comprised in a claim pertaining to said method and furthermore does not define the apparatus in terms of its physical structure, but only in functional terms corresponding to the steps of said method, the claimed apparatus does not contribute anything more to the art than the method, in spite of the fact that the claim is formulated in a different category. In such a case, if the method is excluded from patentability, so is the apparatus.
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Decision: Decision in T 38/86

T 6/83 - Data Processor Network/IBM

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Date of the Decision: 
1988-10-06
Headnote: 
An invention relating to the co-ordination and control of the internal communication between programs and data files held at different processors in a data processing system having a plurality of interconnected data processors in a telecommunication network, and the features of which are not concerned with the nature of the data and the way in which a particular application program operates on them, is to be regarded as solving a problem which is essentially technical. Such an invention therefore is to be regarded as an invention within the meaning of Article 52(1) EPC.
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Decision: Decision in T 6/83 - Data Processor Network/IBM

T 22/85 - Document abstracting and retrieving/IBM

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Date of the Decision: 
1988-10-05
Headnote: 
Abstracting a document, storing the abstract, and retrieving it in response to a query falls as such within the category of schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts and constitutes therefore non-patentable subject-matter under Article 52(2)© and 52(3) EPC The mere setting out of the sequence of steps necessary to perform an activity, excluded as such from patentability under Article 52(2) and 52(3) EPC, in terms of functions or functional means to be realised with the aid of conventional computer hardware elements does not import any technical considerations and cannot, therefore, lend a technical character to that activity and thereby overcome the exclusion from patentability.
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Decision: Decision in T 22/85 - Document abstracting and retrieving/IBM