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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 >> eSpeed, Inc (Patent) [2008] UKIntelP o25408 (9 September 2008) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIntelP/2008/o25408.html Cite as: [2008] UKIntelP o25408 |
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For the whole decision click here: o25408
Summary
The invention related to an electronic trading network in which more than one broker could act on behalf of a particular trader. Applying the Aerotel test, the hearing officer considered the contribution to be the provision in an electronic trading network of functionality by which a user terminal could command the assignment of a communication channel to the trading system which channel was unique to a particular user, all messages or commands thereafter relating to that user (including messages back from the trading system to the user terminals) being routed through that channel irrespective of the user terminals from which they operated. He did not consider the proxy server through which the communication channels were established to be a new item of hardware akin to the special exchange in Aerotel and did not therefore think it was part of the contribution. Since the contribution was no more than the programming of a trading network to set up a chosen business model rather than to overcome any technical or physical problem in the network (RiM v Inpro [2006] EWHC 70 distinguished), the hearing officer considered it to be solely within the computer program and business method exclusions of section 1(2) and not to be technical in nature. Application refused.
