EPO T410/96: IBM document markup

EPO 1990: T 0022/85: A Technical Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) rejects a patent application which is directed to a program for computers. In 1984, the EPO's examiners had rejected the patents based on the original Examination Guidelines of 1978, saying that the claims referred to a "program for computers". The appellant argued on the basis of newer Guidelines and caselaw that his claims are directed to technical effects and not a program as such. The Board of Appeal rejects the appeal by arguing indirectly that the use of general-purpose computer hardware does not confer technicity on an abstract method: "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 EPC" and "The mere setting out of the sequence of steps necessary to perform an activity, excluded as such from patentability under Article 52 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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english version 2004/08/16 by Hartmut PILCH


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