Fujitsu's Application
Encyclopedia
Fujitsu's Application is a 6 March 1997 judgment by the Court of Appeal of England and Wales
. The judges' decision was to confirm the refusal of a patent by the United Kingdom Patent Office
and by J Laddie on Appeal before the High Court
. LJ Aldous heard the appeal before the Court of Appeal.
's claimed invention was a new tool for modelling crystal structures on a computer. A scientist wishing to investigate what would result if he made a new material consisting of a combination of two existing compounds would enter data representing those compounds and how they should be joined into the computer. The computer then automatically generated and displayed the new structure using the data supplied. Previously, the same effect could only have been achieved by assembling plastic models by hand - a time-consuming task.
Court of Appeal of England and Wales
The Court of Appeal of England and Wales is the second most senior court in the English legal system, with only the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom above it...
. The judges' decision was to confirm the refusal of a patent by the United Kingdom Patent Office
United Kingdom Patent Office
The Intellectual Property Office of the United Kingdom is, since 2 April 2007, the operating name of The Patent Office. It is the official government body responsible for intellectual property rights in the UK and is an executive agency of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills...
and by J Laddie on Appeal before the High Court
High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice is, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...
. LJ Aldous heard the appeal before the Court of Appeal.
Facts
FujitsuFujitsu
is a Japanese multinational information technology equipment and services company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is the world's third-largest IT services provider measured by revenues....
's claimed invention was a new tool for modelling crystal structures on a computer. A scientist wishing to investigate what would result if he made a new material consisting of a combination of two existing compounds would enter data representing those compounds and how they should be joined into the computer. The computer then automatically generated and displayed the new structure using the data supplied. Previously, the same effect could only have been achieved by assembling plastic models by hand - a time-consuming task.
Discussion
- UK courts should look to the decisions of the European Patent Office for guidance in interpreting the exclusions.
- A "technical contribution" is needed to make a potentially excluded thing patentable, proclaiming that this was a concept at the heart of patent law and referring to the European Patent Office'sEuropean Patent OrganisationThe European Patent Organisation is a public international organisation created in 1977 by its contracting states to grant patents in Europe under the European Patent Convention of 1973...
decision in T 208/84, VICOM. - There is a difficulty inherent in determining what is and is not "technical", such that each case should be decided on its own facts.
- The substance of an invention should be used to assess whether or not a thing is patentable, not the form in which it is claimed. Thus a non-patentable method cannot be patented under the guise of an apparatus.
Judgment
The claimed invention was certainly a useful tool. However, as claimed, the invention was nothing more than a conventional computer which automatically displayed a crystal structure shown pictorally in a form that would in the past have been produced as a model. The only advance expressed in the claims was the computer program which enabled the combined structure to be portrayed more quickly. The new tool therefore provided nothing that went beyond the normal advantages that are obtained by the use of a computer program. Thus, there was no technical contribution and the application was rejected as being a computer program as such.See also
- List of judgments of the UK Courts relating to excluded subject matter
- Software patents under United Kingdom patent lawSoftware patents under United Kingdom patent lawThere are four over-riding requirements for a patent to be granted under United Kingdom patent law. Firstly, there must have been an invention. That invention must be novel, inventive and susceptible of industrial application...
- Software patents under the European Patent ConventionSoftware patents under the European Patent ConventionThe patentability of software, computer programs and computer-implemented inventions under the European Patent Convention is the extent to which subject matter in these fields is patentable under the Convention on the Grant of European Patents of October 5, 1973...
External links
- Software Patents After Fujitsu. New Directions or (another) Missed Opportunity?
- Is the extension of the patent system to include software related inventions desirable?
- A STEP FORWARD: EXCLUDING 'TECHNICAL' FROM THE TEST FOR PATENTABLE SUBJECT MATTER
- Inherent Patentability as related to computer software written after High Court judgment but before Court of Appeal had issued their judgment