BL number
O/349/17
Concerning rights in
GB1116597.4
Hearing Officer
Mr A Bartlett
Decision date
24 July 2017
Person(s) or Company(s) involved
Thoughtwire Holdings Corp
Provisions discussed
PA 1977 Section 1(2)(c)
Keywords
Excluded fields (refused)
Related Decisions
None

Summary

The Application relates to a data sharing system providing an intermediary service for passing data between two or more software systems. The service uses semantic data and stores a copy of received data in a graph data structure which includes relationships between the data items. The service also stores semantic data requests, and when relevant updates to its stored data are detected, it will semantically resolve a request from the graph data structure and send the requested data to the address provided by the requesting software system.

The applicant argued that the service was analogous to the special exchange in Aerotel and also argued that the third and fourth of the AT&T signposts indicated a technical effect. The Hearing Officer applied the Aerotel/Macrossan 4 step approach and found that the contribution made by the invention fell solely in subject matter excluded under section 1(2) as a program for a computer as such. As the Hearing Officer did not find any saving amendment, they refused the application.