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United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions >> Epic Systems Corporation (Patent) [2009] UKIntelP o04909 (20 February 2009) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIntelP/2009/o04909.html Cite as: [2009] UKIntelP o4909, [2009] UKIntelP o04909 |
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For the whole decision click here: o04909
Summary
The invention related to the electronic generation of orders for patient care in an acute care environment. It recognised that that in most cases the parameters making up an order belonged to a predictable set and therefore filtered the information in the database of a record system to present the user with a limited set of order templates and parameters, thus avoiding having to enter the parameters as text. This reduced the amount of data to be entered and transferred across the network, and increased the efficiency of data processing by reducing the likelihood of error. The invention was variously claimed as a dynamic order composer device, a method of manufacturing a product (the order), and a graphical user interface.
Applying the Aerotel test and treating the application as refused, the hearing officer held that in all cases the contribution as a matter of substance was a computer program, not a new physical system (since the hardware was conventional) or method of manufacture (even if the data represented real physical entities and the order was output in physical form). Considering, in accordance with Symbian, the practical reality of what the program achieved, the hearing officer held that it was merely a program for carrying out a better administrative procedure and therefore made no technical contribution. It was therefore excluded as both a computer program and a business method.
