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Thursday, February 08, 2007

UK: Law Lords Won't Bother With Patents On CIIs.

my earlier posting I had reported on speculations as to a possible final judgement of the House of Lords concerning patentability of computer-implemented inventions (CIIs) in view of the

Decision in the Supreme Court of Judicature Court of Appeal (Civil Division) on Appeal from the High Court of Justice Chencery Division (Patents Court) - Neutral Citation Number: [2006] EWCA Civ 1371 - given by The Hon Mr Justice Lewison, The Rt Hon Lord Justice Jacob, and by The Rt Hon Lord Justice Neuberger, the case known as Aerotel Macrossan. Now there is a

report in

ITweek saying:

"[...] The Law Lords refused Australian businessman Neal Macrossan leave to appeal against a court decision last year that his invention of an automated system that compiles the necessary documents for incorporating a company in the UK could not be patented.

A patent application for the web-based system had been rejected by the Court of Appeal in October on the grounds that it was a 'business method' and a 'computer program', both of which cannot be patented under patent law.

But Macrossan's lawyers had argued that the Court of Appeal judges had used new criteria for judging what constituted a successful patent application that were out of step with those used in the rest of Europe and that there was a need for clarification on the points of law surrounding what software is patentable.

The Lords rejected this line of argument, claiming the case 'does not raise an arguable point of general public importance'. [...]"

So, the case 'does not raise an arguable point of general public importance'? Huh?

Anyway, see also further commentary on the

IPkat Blog.

[UPDATE 2007-02-15] See also

Mr. Macrossan's comments on the Lords' decision and

further material on that case on the

ukcorporator.co.uk website.

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