 |
[Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Multidatabase Search] [Help] [Feedback] | |
United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions |
||
|
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions >> LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Inc (Patent) [2013] UKIntelP o28113 (11 July 2013) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIntelP/2013/o28113.html Cite as: [2013] UKIntelP o28113 |
||
[New search] [Printable PDF version] [Help]
Summary
The invention relates to a database of driving performance data, which receives data from multiple sources and which may provide data to different parties. The driving performance data may be used for assessing risk for the purposes of calculating insurance premiums, or other purposes such as advertising and marketing and may be used by bodies including government agencies, employers or for consumer protection. The invention uses telematic driver data and vehicle data from on-board devices, and aggregated data from other sources, to produce driving performance data. At least some of the data is transformed into a common format. A violation code engine is configured to separate and categorise driver violations in a historical record to provide a driver violation pattern representing violation of e.g. laws or regulations concerning the operation of a vehicle. The applicants argued that the invention comprises technical apparatus, that the transformation of data is a technical task and that it solves the technical problem of sharing disparate data. They also argued that that the provision of a driver violation pattern is not a method for doing business as such.
The Hearing Officer considered whether the claimed invention was excluded from patentability under section 1(2). He followed the four step test set-out in Aerotel/Macrossan as confirmed by Symbian in considering whether the contribution provided by the invention is actually technical. He applied the AT&T signposts and followed the reasoning in Halliburton regarding methods for doing business. The claims were found to define an invention falling solely within the excluded subject matter, as a program for a computer and a method for doing business as such. Consequently it was not necessary to decide whether the claims defined an inventive step. The application was refused.