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United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions >> Neal William Macrossan (Patent) [2005] UKIntelP o07805 (22 March 2005) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIntelP/2005/o07805.html Cite as: [2005] UKIntelP o07805, [2005] UKIntelP o7805 |
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For the whole decision click here: o07805
Summary
The application relates to a computerised method for creating the required legal documents to incorporate a business entity using a data processing system. The computer is programmed to ask questions of a user, the answers to which determine further questions to be answered. This process is repeated until the user has provided enough information to allow the computer to generate the documents by merging document templates with the users answers.
The HO considered that the invention claimed related to an 'expert system' in that, by providing a guided question session and giving expert advice in the sense of creating the necessary documents, the computer was standing in for a human legal advisor. She held that the invention was therefore a method of performing a mental act, a method for doing business business and a computer program and that there was no technical contribution that would prevent its exclusion from patentability Wang Laboratories Incs Application [1991] RPC 463 followed.
