The Patent and Design Journal 6085 - Intellectual Property Office

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xx Patents and Designs Journal No. 6085 4 January 2006 Special Notices - cont REDUCTION FOR E-FILING Electronic filing (not in character coded format) £87 Electronic filing (in character coded format) £131 Fees for preparation of priority document £22 Practice Notice Patents Act 1977: Patentability of games 1. This notice announces a change to practice at the Patent Office in examining patent applications for inventions relating to games. It follows the judgment of Pumfrey J in Shopalotto.com Limited’s Patent Application [2005] EWHC 2416 (Pat). 2. The Comptroller has previously considered the patentability of games in light of Official Ruling 1926(A) (1926) 43 RPC Appendix page i. Under this ruling, an apparatus for playing a game comprising one or more playing pieces and a board marked in a particular manner substantially as shown in drawings accompanying the specification, with the playing piece(s) being moved in accordance with specified rules, was considered to meet the requirements of an invention, subject to any other objections such as lack of novelty. 3. In Shopalotto, Pumfrey J said in paragraph 4: “The Official Ruling cannot provide a valid guide to the interpretation of the 1977 Act, the more so since the 1977 Act is, as I have indicated, to be interpreted having regard to the provisions of the European Patent Convention”. The Comptroller will therefore no longer use the Official Ruling 1926(A) when assessing the patentability of games. 4. The Shopalotto case concerned a computer game. The approach Pumfrey J used in this context appears to be the same as that set out in the Comptroller’s Practice Notice of 29 July 2005 “Examining for Patentability”. For example, in paragraph 9, Pumfrey J concludes: “If there is a contribution to the art outside the list of excluded matter, the invention is patentable, but if the only contribution to the art lies in excluded subject matter, it is not patentable”. He makes a similar point in paragraph 10, where he also stresses that the contribution must be considered as a matter of substance. Accordingly the Comptroller will now apply this approach to games as well.
4 January 2006 Patents and Designs Journal No. 6085 xxi Special Notices - cont Enquiries 5. Any enquiries about this notice should be made to: Tom Marlow The Patent Office Concept House Cardiff Road Newport South Wales NP10 8QQ Tel: +44 (0)1633 813572 Fax: +44(0)1633 814491 Email: thomas.marlow@patent.gov.uk S N Dennehey Director of Patents 25 November 2005
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