| European Case Law Identifier: | ECLI:EP:BA:1989:T003886.19890214 | ||||||||
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| Date of decision: | 14 February 1989 | ||||||||
| Case number: | T 0038/86 | ||||||||
| Application number: | 83102553.1 | ||||||||
| IPC class: | G06F 15/20 | ||||||||
| Language of proceedings: | EN | ||||||||
| Distribution: | A | ||||||||
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| Title of application: | - | ||||||||
| Applicant name: | IBM | ||||||||
| Opponent name: | - | ||||||||
| Board: | 3.5.01 | ||||||||
| Headnote: | 1. A person who is detecting and replacing linguistic expressions which exceed a predetermined understandability level in a list of linguistic expressions using only his skill and judgment is performing mental acts within the meaning of Article 52(2)(c) EPC. Accordingly, schemes, rules and methods used in performing them are not inventions within the meaning of Article 52(1) EPC. 2. Since according to Article 52(3) EPC patentability is excluded only to the extent to which the patent application relates to subject-matter or activities summarised in Article 52(2) as such, it appears to be the intention of the EPC to permit patenting in those cases in which the invention involves some contribution to the art in a field not excluded from patentability. 3. The use of technical means for carrying out a method for performing mental acts, partly or entirely without human intervention, may, having regard to Article 52(3) EPC, render such a method a technical process or method and therefore an invention within the meaning of Article 52(1) EPC. 4. However, if the technical implementation of such a method is obvious to a person skilled in the technical art, once the steps of the method for performing the mental acts have been defined, so that there is no inventive contribution in a field not excluded from patentability under Article 52(2)(c) EPC, such method does not involve an inventive step within the meaning of Article 56 EPC. 5. If a claim for an apparatus (here: a text processing system) for carrying out a method does not specify any technical features beyond those already comprised in a claim pertaining to said method and furthermore does not define the apparatus in terms of its physical structure, but only in functional terms corresponding to the steps of said method, the claimed apparatus does not contribute anything more to the art than the method, in spite of the fact that the claim is formulated in a different category. In such a case, if the method is excluded from patentability, so is the apparatus. |
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| Keywords: | Method for performing mental acts Mental acts - method for performing Mix of technical and non-technical features Inventive step (denied) Text processing |
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Source: http://www.epo.org/law-practice/case-law-appeals/recent/t860038ex1.html
Date retrieved: 17 May 2021
20 references found.
Click X to load a reference inside the current page, click on the title to open in a new page.Offical Journal of the EPO
XOJ EPO SE 1/2021, p179 - Annex 1 - Index of published decisions of the boards of appeal and the Enlarged Board of Appeal - (as at 31 December 2020)
XOJ EPO SE 1/2020, p174 - Annex 1 - Index of published decisions of the boards of appeal and the Enlarged Board of Appeal - (as at 31 December 2019)
XOJ EPO SE 1/2019, p158 - XVI. - Index of published decisions of the boards of appeal and the Enlarged Board of Appeal - (as at 31 December 2018)