NIPC Law

As I have to present a talk for our seminar on Software Patents after Symbian and Bilski  in Liverpool on 5 Feb 2009 I thought I would have a look at the Comptroller's decisions since Symbian Ltd v Comptroller-General   [2008] EWCA Civ 1066 to see whether there had been any change in the Office's approach to software and business method patents since the CA's decision. The official line from the IP O is that this case has not made much difference.   In "Applying the  Aerotel/Macrossan Test"  the Office revisited four cases that had been decided before Symbian  an d concluded that they would have been decided in exactly the same way now.  And yet I wonder. Only  one case has come before an hearing officer since Symbian and that was a win for the applicant. In January Patent Ltd.'s application  the invention was a combined electronic point of sale device for buying credits for mobile telephones. The examiner had rejected the application on the grounds that the...

I have not yet had a chance properly to analyse the Court of Appeal's decision in  Symbian Ltd v Comptroller General of Patents [2008] EWCA Civ 1066 (8 Oc 2008) but it looks to me as though the Court has rowed back a bit since  Macrossan   [2007] RPC 7, [2006] Info TLR 215, [2007] Bus LR 634, [2007] 1 All ER 225, [2006] EWCA Civ 1371 and that English jurisprudence is now closer to that of the EPO Technical Board of Appeal. Referring to the Board's decision in Duns Licensing Associates LP ,  T 0154/04 - 3.5.01 which discussed Macrossan the CA (which included Lord Neuberger as well as Lord Justice Jacob who also delivered the CA's judgment in Macrossan ) observed that  at para [11] "a t least as a matter of broad principle, it seems to us that the approaches in the two cases and indeed in the great majority of cases in this jurisdiction and in the EPO, are, on a fair analysis, capable of reconciliation." The basis of that reconciliation appears to have been as foll...

The House of Lords has refused permission to appeal from the Court of Appeal's decision in Macrossan which was heard with Aerotel Ltd. v Telco Holdings Ltd and Others [2006] EWCA Civ 1371 on 27 Oct 2006. Mr Simon Hart, a Queensland solicitor who has already contributed to this blog on this litigation, has drawn my attention to a new website at http://www.ukcorporator.co.uk/patentappeal.php that contains all the transcripts from the hearing officer upwards as well as some interesting commentary. I will be returning to this topic when time allows.