manner of manufacture

(Not) patenting business methods

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The Full Federal Court has upheld the Commissioner’s refusal to grant Research Affiliates’ patent for a computer implemented method for constructing a portfolio management index.

The central claim reads:

A computer-implemented method for generating an index, the method including steps of:

(a)        accessing data relating to a plurality of assets;

(b)        processing the data thereby to identify a selection of the assets for inclusion in the index based on an objective measure of scale other than share price, market capitalization and any combination thereof;

(c)        accessing a weighting function configured to weight the selected assets;

(d)        applying the weighting function, thereby to assign to each of the selected assets a respective weighting, wherein the weighting:

(i)   is based on an objective measure of scale other than share price, market capitalization and any combination thereof; and

(ii)  is not based on market capitalization weighting, equal weighting, share price weighting and any combination thereof;

thereby to generate the index.

The Court posed the issue before it as being:

whether computer implementation of an otherwise unpatentable business scheme is sufficient to make the claimed method properly the subject of letters patent.

One might think, put that way, there is only one answer. May be. It makes it very important, however, how one determines whether the “scheme” is itself unpatentable.

Another intriguing aspect of the decision is that, before it embarked on analysing whether this was indeed a “manner of manufacture, the Court engaged in a very extensive review of how this issue is approached in other jurisdictions, including the USA and UK.

Time pressures don’t permit extended analysis at this stage. In the meantime:

and no doubt others. It will be interesting to see what happens to the RPL Central appeal.

Research Affiliates LLC v Commissioner of Patents [2014] FCAFC 150 (Kenny, Bennett and Nicholas JJ)

 

 

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Abstract principle, fine art or just unknowable

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Mr Lisica applied for a patent, claim 1 of which reads:

An auscultative method that expounds upon the Natural Harmonics Series (NHS) and Mr Svetko Lisica’s Scientific Theory for Music’s decipherability and attunement, from the Invention’s Programmatic Specificity in a soniferous or visual realm for a new, useful, innovative and original Composition Engine and via its computations, providing the compositional harmonic materials that are put in the states of being manifested by the Invention’s unprecedented and original Musical Instrument and Sonic Biodynamical Brain Entrainment Bridge for Binaural Beats, into a stable unit of measure in exactitude for a tuning medium, herewith this Invention is the state or fact of existence, a practical Universal Intonation System that belongs with Music, The Absolute and The Beyond.

(The other claims are all dependent.)

Despite submissions to the Examiner, the Delegate at a hearing and an appeal to the Court, no-one (apart from Mr Lisica) really has any idea what the claimed invention is.

The Delegate rejected Mr Lisica’s application on the grounds that it was not a manner of manufacture and contravention of s 40(2) – the old form.[1]

Jessup J found only one objection was necessary: non-compliance with s 40(3) (in its old form):

The claims are, of course, critical to the exercise in which the court is now involved. It is here that the applicant encounters what is, for a court operating without the assistance of expert evidence, a fundamental difficulty. In my view, Claim 1, set out above, is not clear and succinct, as required by s 40(3) of the Patents Act. As a statement marking out the area of the public monopoly which the applicant seeks, the claim falls well short of the standard of clarity required. The ground of objection referred to in s 59(c) is substantiated in relation to the claim. I do not, therefore, consider that there is no lawful ground of objection of the kind referred to in s 49(1)(b). I would exercise the discretion arising under s 49(2) adversely to the applicant.

The Commissioner (or, rather, her officers) were a bit naughty. Mr Lisica had submitted 6 files in support of his application. The Examiner and the Delegate only opened and read 2 of them. Apparently, the other files were in SCM format, which the Patent Office couldn’t open.[2]

The naughty bit: no-one told Mr Lisica that the Patent Office didn’t read the files (because they couldn’t open them) until everyone got to Court for the trial. As Jessup J explained:

It may have required a modicum of ingenuity to open the SCM files – in a demonstration in court, the applicant himself did so. But the troubling aspect of the omission referred to above is not whether it was reasonable of the applicant to have expected the examiner and the delegate to open the files, but that the applicant was never informed of the difficulty which they were, apparently, experiencing, nor invited to remedy it. The examiner’s report was supplied to the applicant in the normal course, and it gave him no reason to suspect that four out of the six files which he had submitted had not been viewed or considered for such assistance as they may have provided in conveying the nature of the invention and how it was best performed. In that state of ignorance, the applicant made his submissions to the delegate, and he too dealt with the problems which the application involved without viewing all the files which constituted the application.

(His Honour did note that he was not suggesting any different result might have occurred if the correct process had observed.) Jessup J seems to be contemplating not allowing the Commissioner her costs:

In the orders which accompany these reasons, I shall lay out a timetable for the making of written submissions on costs. I shall, of course, consider any submission which the Commissioner makes in that regard, but I think I should say at this stage that one issue upon which I would expect to be addressed in that submission is whether the circumstances most recently discussed above in these reasons should be considered relevant to such entitlement to costs as the Commissioner might otherwise have as the successful party in this appeal.

Lisica v Commissioner of Patents [2014] FCA 433

  1. Relying amongst other things on Research Affiliates.  ?
  2. His Honour drily noted, even a file in .doc format does not comply with the Commissioner’s requirements.  ?

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Apotex v Sanofi: manner of manufacture

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As briefly noted last week, the High Court handed down its ruling in Apotex’ appeal. Although the case will be mainly remembered because Apotex lost its challenge to the patentability of Sanofi’s method of medical treatment, Apotex actually won on the patent infringement point. (As there was no appeal on that point, however, it was still liable for infringing the copyright in Sanofi’s product information.)

Claim 1 of Sanofi’s relevant patent is for:

[a] method of preventing or treating a skin disorder, wherein the skin disorder is psoriasis, which comprises administering to a recipient an effective amount of [leflunomide].

The patent for leflunomide itself has expired.

Apotex had received marketing approval from the TGA for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA).

By a majority of 4 – 1,[1] the High Court held that:

  1. a a method of medical treatment is indeed patentable subject matter – a manner of manufacture[2] – under Australian law;
  2. a second or subsequent use of a known substance could also be patentable subject matter; but
  3. Apotex did not infringe by selling or supplying its generic leflunomide according to its product information.

manner of manufacture

All 5 judges accepted the orthodoxy of the NRDC decision as defining the approach to whether a claim was to a manner of manufacture. And all 5 judges accepted it was a broad and widening concept.

Crennan and Kiefel JJ identified NRDC as essentially requiring 2 conditions to be satisfied. For example, at [235], their Honours quoted the Wellcome case:

This principle [in the NRDC Case] extends to a process which does not produce a new substance but results in ‘a new and useful effect’. If the new result is ‘an artificially created state of affairs’ providing economic utility, it may be considered a ‘manner of new manufacture’ within s 6 of the Statute of Monopolies. (Crennan and Kiefel JJ’s emphasis)

At [278] – [285], their Honours identified 7 reasons why a method of medical treatment could be patentable. Gaegler J agreed with these 7 reasons and proposed an eighth.[3] Given the broad scope of the concept, Crennan, Kiefel and Gaegler JJ considered the crucial consideration was that there was no economic or ethical basis for distinguishing between the patentability of a pharmaceutical (or other medical) product and a method.[4] French CJ’s reasoning was similar to this point; considering the historical exclusion from patentability to be an anomaly for which no clear and consistent foundation had been established.[5]

In contrast, Hayne J in dissent considered at [143] – [150] that it could well be possible to distinguish between patenting medical products and methods of treatment. Instead, his Honour considered that a process would only be patentable if the product (in the sense of the result, outcome or effect) of the process, and not just the process itself, had economic utility. Hayne J considered that a method of medical treatment did not satisfy that criterion because (at [163]):

The effect of using the process is personal to the individual. It is not an effect which the person who owns the right to use the process, or any person other than the individual who has been treated, can turn to economic account in any way, whether directly or indirectly. If the individual who has been treated can turn the effect to economic account, he or she can do so only indirectly: by taking advantage of better health to make a more valuable contribution to national production. The individual is not a subject of commerce. The product of the process in the individual (having better health than might otherwise have been the case) cannot be sold. ….

Perhaps reflecting Hayne J’s approach to some extent, Crennan and Kiefel JJ at [287] did consider that there was a distinction to be drawn between uses of therapeutic substances and the activities and procedures of doctors when treating patients on the basis that the latter are “non-economic”:

There is, however, a distinction which can be acknowledged between a method of medical treatment which involves a hitherto unknown therapeutic use of a pharmaceutical (having prior therapeutic uses) and the activities or procedures of doctors (and other medical staff) when physically treating patients. Although it is unnecessary to decide the point, or to seek to characterise such activities or procedures exhaustively, speaking generally they are, in the language of the NRDC Case, “essentially non?economic” and, in the language of the EPC and the Patents Act 1977 (UK), they are not “susceptible” or “capable” of industrial application. To the extent that such activities or procedures involve “a method or a process”, they are unlikely to be able to satisfy the NRDC Case test for the patentability of processes because they are not capable of being practically applied in commerce or industry, a necessary prerequisite of a “manner of manufacture”.[6]

French CJ, however, at [1] and [44] expressly included surgical procedures in his Honour’s finding in favour of patentability.

second use of a known substance

As Crrennan and Kiefel JJ pointed out, NRDC itself involved a second or subsequent use of a known substance, the hitherto unsuspected properties of which squarely satisfied the requirements for inventiveness. Apotex’ reliance on this basis, therefore, failed at [291] in succinct terms.

the infringement question

… will have to wait for another day.

Apotex Pty Ltd v Sanofi-Aventis Australia Pty Ltd [2013] HCA 50

  1. French CJ, Crennan, Kiefel and Gaegler JJ; Hayne J dissenting.  ?
  2. Patents Act 1990 s 18(1)(a). The claim would, of course, also have to satisfy the other requirements including novelty, inventive step, utility etc.  ?
  3. Gaegler J appears to be alone in attributing weight to the potential disruption to business investments if the endorsement by Bristol-Myers v Squibb of the patentability of methods of medical treatment was overturned after 13 years.  ?
  4. See [282] for Crennan and Kiefel JJ; [314] for Gaegler J.  ?
  5. At [50]. See also [44] – [49].  ?
  6. Earlier, at [266] – [271], their Honours had noticed that Congress amended the US Patents Act to include §287(c)  ?

    “the effect of which is to permit the patenting of surgical methods to continue but to bar actions for patent infringement against medical practitioners (and ”related health care entit[ies]“) for ”the performance of a medical or surgical procedure on a body“.”

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Patenting computer programs or business methods in Australia

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At the end of August, Middleton J overturned the Commissioner’s refusal to grant an innovation patent for RPL’s computerised method entitled ‘Method and System for Automated Collection of Evidence of Skills and Knowledge’. Instead, his Honour held that the method was a manner of manufacture and, novelty and inventive step having been satisfied, patentable.

What the claimed invention was

In essence, the claimed invention allowed a user to access a single point of entry (for example, over the internet using his or her browser), retrieve information about particular qualifications, which was presented in the form of questions to the user, then provide answers and supporting documentation (still for example over the internet), which was then processed by a relevant certifying institution and, if the relevant criteria were satisfied, the relevant qualification would be awarded or, if not, the user could be presented with information about what further steps needed to be undertaken to satisfy the necessary criteria.[1]

This bald summary hardly does justice to what was involved. For example, there are a large number of registered training organisations or TAFEs (RTOs). Collectively, they offer some 3,500 different qualifications and some 34,000 Units of Competency. Any individual RTO therefore offered only a very small set of qualifications or units. RPL’s method, first, circumvented the need for an individual user to identify which RTO was appropriate as RPL’s method retrieved all the necessary information from online databases. Then, RPL’s method converted the criteria into a form of questions which the user could answer. So, to take an example from the judgment, the element of competency required for a particular unit relating to aged care:

demonstrate an understanding of the structure and profile of the aged care sector

became:

Generally speaking and based upon your prior experience and education, how do you feel you can demonstrate an understanding of the structure and profile of the aged care sector?

and a particular performance criterion associated with that:

all work reflects an understanding of the key issues facing older people and their carers

was converted in RPL’s method to:

How can you show evidence that all work reflects an understanding of the key issues facing older people and their carers?[2]

for enabling individuals to get their competency or qualifications recognised under the nationally accredited Unit of Competency scheme.

The specification identified the advantages flowing from this method with its single point of contact:[3]

Individuals are provided with a service which simplifies the identification of relevant Units of Competency, and the gathering of associated assessment information to enable [recognition of prior learning] to be performed. Training organisations are relieved of much of the administrative cost associated with performing [recognition of prior learning]. By the time the training organisation is contacted, the relevant Unit of Competency has already been identified, and required information associated with each of the assessable criteria has already been gathered and packaged in a form enabling an efficient assessment in relation to the [recognition of prior learning] process.

Why this constituted a (patentable) manner of manufacture

Middleton J noted at [127] that the test for “manner of manufacture” laid down in NRDC, CCOM and Grant required that the claimed invention result in an artificially created state of affairs in which a new and useful effect may be observed. This had to be of utility in practical affairs or be of an industrial, commercial or trading character and belong to the useful arts, not the fine arts, so that its value lay in a field of economic endeavour.

These criteria were satisfied. The results of the method were useful because at [129] it overcame difficulties involved in seeking out education providers and enabled recognition of prior learning. This was relevant to a field of economic endeavour: the education sector of the economy and thus had the necessary industrial, commercial or trading character.

While the information about RTOs and particular Units of Competency could be accessed individually in undifferentiated form over the internet, the method provided a single point of entry. In addition to the single point of entry:

[141] The computer programmed in accordance with the Patent further operates to process the retrieved information and to automatically generate data comprising an alternate means of presentation. This alternate means comprises a series of questions which can be presented to an individual user along with user interface elements which implement an online form suitable for the receipt of responses to those questions. An assessment server is programmed, again according to the teaching of the Patent, to present the form to the computer of an individual user, who preferably requires only conventional web browser software to access the assessment server via the internet. In particular, the form provides not only for user-entered responses, but also for upload of one or more files stored on the user’s computer which may comprise, for example, evidence of the user’s competency with regard to the recognised qualification standard. This access to an online form occurs as a result of the retrieval, processing and presentation steps being conducted according to the teaching of the Patent.

The various stages in this process each gave rise to the physical effect required under Grant in the various changes of state in the computer’s memory.[4] Grant itself of course involved no such transformation since it did not involve any use of any computer – just a scheme for the use of a trust.

The Commissioner had recognised that such a transformation did take place, but it was not sufficient. In a line of decisions beginning with Invention Pathways, the Commissioner had ruled that: [5]

the “concrete effect or phenomenon or manifestation or transformation” referred to must be one that is significant both in that it is concrete but also that it is central to the purpose or operation of the claimed process or otherwise arises from the combination of steps of the method in a substantial way. Consequently while the step of building a house involves a concrete physical effect it is peripheral to the method of acquiring a house and indeed could hardly be said to characterise the subject matter of the method such that it is considered an artificially created state of affairs. I consider the same to apply to a business scheme implemented in some part by computer and do not believe the patentability of such a method can arise solely from the fact that, in a general sense, it is implemented in or with the assistance of a computer or utilises some part a computer or other physical device in a incidental way.”

The Commissioner argued that the use of the computer here was not central to the method, being merely a “common mechanism to carry out the method in a convenient way.”

At [147], Middleton J rejected the Commissioner’s view that NRDC, CCOM and Grant required the requirement of substantiality or centrality of a physical effect in the sense the Commissioner contended for.

In addition, Middleton J rejected the Commissioner’s argument that the claimed invention could not be a manner of manufacture as it could be performed without the use of a computer. His Honour rejected this as a matter of principle at [157]: it was not an appropriate way to approach the assessment required under NRDC, CCOM and Grant. In any event, as a matter of fact, the magnitude of the task meant it wasn’t practicable without the use of a computer:

[158] … as a matter of fact I accept that the magnitude of the task performed by the invention (as previously described) and the express terms of the claims themselves mean that the computer is an essential part of the invention claimed, as it enables the method to be performed.

While his Honour accepted that US cases could be persuasive, he noted he was required to apply the tests developed under Australian law and did not find any assistance in the present context.[6]

At [171] – [172], Middleton J distinguished the recent rejection by Emmett J of Research Affiliates claims for a method of generating an index of securities and assets. In Middleton J’s view the central difference was that the specification in Research Affiliates “contained virtually no substantive detail about how the claimed method was to be implemented by a computer”.[7] In contrast, there was detailed information about these matters in RPL’s specification and the computer was central to the method’s working.

RPL Central Pty Ltd v Commissioner of Patents [2013] FCA 871

  1. The terms of claim 1 are set out here.  ?
  2. Taken from [21] and [24] of the Reasons.  ?
  3. At [42] of the Reasons.  ?
  4. At [143] – [144].  ?
  5. Myall at [53].  ?
  6. While his Honour did not put it this way, that is perhaps unsurprising given the rather uncertain state of the US case law, e.g.  here and here.  ?
  7. An application for leave to appeal from Emmett J’s decision has been filed: NSD328/2013.  ?

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Business method patents: Federal Court retreating?

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Emmett J has dismissed Research Associates’ appeal from the Commissioner’s rejection of an attempt to patent a method for calculating an Index for using in financial investing.

Claim 1 was for:

A computer-implemented method for generating an index, the method including steps of:

(a) accessing data relating to a plurality of assets;

(b) processing the data thereby to identify a selection of the assets for inclusion in the index based on an objective measure of scale other than share price, market capitalization and any combination thereof;

(c) accessing a weighting function configured to weight the selected assets;

(d) applying the weighting function, thereby to assign to each of the selected assets a respective weighting, wherein the weighting:

(i) is based on an objective measure of scale other than share price, market capitalization and any combination thereof; and

(ii) is not based on market capitalization weighting, equal weighting, share price weighting and any combination thereof, thereby to generate the index.

Emmett J held that this was not a manner of manufacture as required by s 18(1)(a) of the Patents Act 1990.

His Honour appears to have rejected this on a number of bases. First, his Honour appears to have characterised the claim as akin to a mere scheme, abstract idea or mere information and not resulting in a physical effect or physical effect of the right kind:

65. A mere scheme, abstract idea, or mere information, is not, of itself, patentable. Some physical effect is required. Thus, where the representation of a curve, or the representation of Chinese language characters, or the writing of information to a smart card, is produced by a computer, there is a component physically affected or a change in state in a part of a machine, which makes the invention patentable.

66. Research Affiliates accepts that the only physical result generated by the method of the claimed invention is a computer file containing the index. That is because the method is implemented by means of a computer. Research Affiliates places significance on the fact that the result of the claimed method is the generation of the index by a computer.

67. However, the index generated is nothing more than a set of data. The index is simply information: it is a set of numbers. It is no more a manner of manufacture than a bank balance, whether represented as data in a bank’s computer, written on a piece of paper or kept in a person’s memory. While it is true that the index may be stored in the computer’s RAM, or on a memory device, or can be transmitted, that can be said of any data generated by a computer. If that were sufficient to satisfy the requirement of an artificially created state of affairs, any computer-implemented scheme would be patentable, merely by reason of the fact that it happens to be implemented by a computer. (emphasis supplied)

Secondly, in what might be a foreshadowing of the Raising the Bar amendments about to come into force, Emmett J was highly critical of the level of disclosure of how to implement the alleged invention:

68. While the Specification appears to be intended to create the impression of detailed computer implementation, the Specification says almost nothing about how that is to be done. The reliance placed on the Colonial Index embodiment is a good example of what is not in the Specification. The discussion in the Specification provides no substantive detail regarding the implementation of the claimed method. The upshot of the discussion is merely that the method is implemented by a computer, but there is no disclosure of how that is to be done.

….

70. The method of the claimed invention does not involve a specific effect being generated by the computer. The mere use of a computer necessarily carries with it the writing of information into the computer’s memory. There is a stark contrast between a computer-generated curve, or a representation of Chinese characters, or the writing of particular information on a smart card, on the one hand, and the quite unspecific index, on the other. There is no practical application in the method of the claimed invention for the improved use of computers. The effect of the implementation of the method is not to improve the operation of or effect of the use of the computer. There is nothing in the Specification or claim 1 that discloses how to produce the index. Thus, there is nothing in the Specification or claim 1 to indicate:

  • how data is accessed in step 1;
  • the nature of the processing undertaken in step 2 to identify the selection of assets;
  • how the weighting function is accessed in step 3;
  • how the relevant measure of scale is chosen in step 4; or
  • how the weighting function is applied in step 4 to assign a weighting to each asset.

71. The case propounded by Research Affiliates depends upon the proposition that information of economic significance, once entered into or produced by means of a computer, becomes an economically valuable artificially created state of affairs, and thus patentable. That proposition must be rejected.

Thirdly, Emmett J found that the alleged invention lacked the necessary quality of “newness” or “inventiveness” on the face of the Specification:

72. The implementation of the method of the claimed invention by means of a computer, at the level articulated in claim 1, is no more than the modern equivalent of writing down the index on pieces of paper. On the face of the Specification, there is no patentable invention in the fact that the claimed method is implemented by means of a computer. The Specification asserts a patentable invention, not in the use of the computer, but in the particular series of steps that give rise to the generation of the index. Those steps could readily have been carried out manually. The aspect of computer implementation is nothing more than the use of a computer for a purpose for which it is suitable. That does not confer patentability.

This suggests a considerable broadening of what constitutes the “face of the Specification” as comprehended in, for example, Bristol-Myers Squibb v Faulding‘s attempted reconciliation of Ramset and Mirabella. Emmett J concluded with what might, with respect, be thought to be an unobjectionable proposition:

73. The enquiry into what constitutes a patentable invention is still evolving. It is not to be tied to particular notions of what was understood to be a manufacture at any particular point in time. However, while new developments in technology might be seen to widen the notion of what is patentable, the modern availability of computers as a standard means of implementing arithmetic or computational processes, which could have been implemented manually in the past, does not carry with it any broadening of the concept of a patentable invention.

On this approach, perhaps, the Court, or the Commissioner, could have concluded readily that the alleged invention, as characterised by Emmett J would fail the inventive step requirement in s 18(1)(b)(ii) without resort to the manner of manufacture “threshold”.

Research Affiliates LLC v Commissioner of Patents [2013] FCA 71

Dr Summerfield, over at Patentology, explores matters in detail.

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Mayo v Prometheus

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Last week, the US Supreme Court unanimously rejected the patentability of Prometheus’ “diagnostic”, characterising it as an impermissible attempt to patent a law of nature.

Claim 1 of the Patent was:

A method of optimizing therapeutic efficacy for treatment of an immune-mediated gastrointestinal disorder, comprising:

“(a) administering a drug providing 6-thioguanine to a subject having said immune-mediated gastrointestinal disorder; and

“(b) determining the level of 6-thioguanine in said subject having said immune-mediated gastrointestinal disorder,

“wherein the level of 6-thioguanine less than about 230 pmol per 8×108 red blood cells indicates a need to increase the amount of said drug subsequently admin istered to said subject and

“wherein the level of 6-thioguanine greater than about 400 pmol per 8×108 red blood cells indicates a need to decrease the amount of said drug subsequently ad ministered to said subject.”

The Supreme Court characterised that part of the claims dealing with the relationship between concentrations of certain metabolites in the blood with the effectiveness of particular dosages as a law of nature, which was unpatentable. The additional features did not overcome that exclusion as they were in effect already well-known and practised. In his Honour’s overview, Breyer J explained the rationale:

[The cases] warn us against up holding patents that claim processes that too broadly preempt the use of a natural law. Morse, supra, at 112– 120; Benson, supra, at 71–72. And they insist that a process that focuses upon the use of a natural law also contain other elements or a combination of elements, sometimes referred to as an “inventive concept,” sufficient to ensure that the patent in practice amounts to signifi cantly more than a patent upon the natural law itself. ….

We find that the process claims at issue here do not satisfy these conditions. In particular, the steps in the claimed processes (apart from the natural laws them selves) involve well-understood, routine, conventional activity previously engaged in by researchers in the field. At the same time, upholding the patents would risk dis proportionately tying up the use of the underlying nat- ural laws, inhibiting their use in the making of further discoveries.

Patently-O has a more substantive consideration: Natural Process + Known Elements = Normally No Patent. The Commissioner of Patents has issued new guidelines indicating his understanding here; and criticisms have been propounded here and here.

The Supreme Court subsequently remitted the Myriad “gene patent” case to the Federal Circuit and Patently-O thinks their patent is going down too.

Our law is in many respects rather different. Section 18(2) of the Patents Act contains an exclusion from patentability only for human beings and the processes for their generation. Under s 18(1) and (1A), however, a patentable invention must be a “manner of manufacture within the meaning of s 6 of the Statute of Monopolies”.

In the ‘watershed’ NRDC case, the High Court confirmed that a ‘mere’ discovery was not a manner of manufacture, but an application of a discovery in a field of economic endeavour would be. A ‘mere’ discovery being “some piece of abstract information without any suggestion of a practical application of it to a useful end” at [8].

On this approach, Prometheus’ patent appears to have moved beyond the ‘mere discovery’ stage. The question might be, therefore, whether the additional integers were obvious or, may be, we have moved into Microcell territory: nothing but “nothing but a claim for a new use of an old substance” (see NRDC at [7].

A role for that approach was preserved (reinstated?) under the 1990 Act by the High Court in Phillips v Mirabella. Now, given the overlap between the Mirabella court’s analysis and the statutory requirements for novelty and inventive step (or an innovative step), that raises a whole set of issues. First, there is a question whether Mirabella would be decided the same way given the High Court seemed to have cut the legs out from under it in Advanced Building Systems – although, as the Full Federal Court pointed out in BMS v Faulding, Advanced Buidling Systems was decided under the 1952 Act and distinguished Mirabella on the grounds that the 2 Acts were different.

In trying to make sense of that, the Full Court went on to find that the “lack of newness” must be apparent on the face of the specification. As that appears to depend on the text of the specification, the approach taken by the US Supreme Court might not be open: the Faulding court found the dosage type regime a manner of manufacture although, in the end, it failed the novelty test.

In Arrow v Merck, Gyles J struck down a dosage regime on the grounds that it lacked subject matter. On appeal, the Full Court upheld invalidity, but only on grounds of lack of novelty and inventive step. Subsequently, Gyles J also accepted that the lack of subject mater ground could not be made out if it was necessary to resort to extrinsic evidence.

I guess we’ll see where the Myriad litigation in Australia takes us in due course.

Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Labs., Inc. (Supreme Court 2012) (pdf)

 

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A business method patent (not yet)

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RPL applied for an innovation patent of a method entitled ‘Method and System for Automated Collection of Evidence of Skills and Knowledge’.

The applied for innovation relates to a method for people to obtain recognition for their prior learning. Apparently, there are some 35,000 qualifications and 34,000 units in the vocational educational and training sector in Australia. Hence it can be difficult for people to identify a particular qualification which they have qualified for as there is no single point of access to the system. The applied for innovation claimed methods for using technology, particularly the internet, to automate the process of identifying relevant criteria and applying for the relevant recognition.

Claim 1 claimed:

1. A method of gathering evidence relevant to an assessment of an individual’s competency relative to a recognised qualification standard, including the steps of:

  • a computer retrieving via the Internet from a remotely-located server a plurality of assessable criteria associated with the recognised qualification standard, said criteria including one or more elements of competency, each of which is associated with one or more performance criteria;
  • the computer processing the plurality of assessable criteria to generate automatically a corresponding plurality of questions relating to the competency of an individual to satisfy each of the elements of competency and performance criteria associated with the recognised qualification standard;
  • an assessment server presenting the automatically-generated questions via the Internet to a computer of an individual requiring assessment; and
  • receiving from the individual via said individual’s computer a series of responses to the automatically generated questions, the responses including evidence of the individual’s skills, knowledge and/or experience in relation to each of the elements of competency and performance criteria,
  • wherein at least one said response includes the individual specifying one or more files stored on the individual’s computer, which are transferred to the assessment server.
Myall opposed alleging lack of novelty based on prior use. The applicant didn’t even need to file evidence to defend this allegation which failed on the evidence submitted by the opponent.
However, it appears that the delegate hearing the opposition raised the objection that the innovation claimed was not a manner of manufacture (see [62]).
The delegate noted (at [45]) that the Full Federal Court’s decision in Grant had qualified NRDC so that a manner of manufacture required
‘an artificial state of affairs, in the sense of a concrete, tangible, physical, or observable effect’
and
A physical effect in the sense of a concrete effect or phenomenon or manifestation or transformation is required.
This had been further explained by the Deputy Commissioner in Invention Pathways:
I do not take [Grant] to suggest that patentability is merely determined on the presence of a physical effect. Rather it clearly must be an effect of such substance or quality that the method considered as a whole is “proper subject of letters patent according to the principles which have been developed for the application of s. 6 of the Statute of Monopolies”.
Accordingly, the Deputy Commissioner considered:
… the “concrete effect or phenomenon or manifestation or transformation” referred to must be one that is significant both in that it is concrete but also that it is central to the purpose or operation of the claimed process or otherwise arises from the combination of steps of the method in a substantial way. Consequently while the step of building a house involves a concrete physical effect it is peripheral to the method of acquiring a house and indeed could hardly be said to characterise the subject matter of the method such that it is considered an artificially created state of affairs. I consider the same to apply to a business scheme implemented in some part by computer and do not believe the patentability of such a method can arise solely from the fact that, in a general sense, it is implemented in or with the assistance of a computer or utilises some part a computer or other physical device in a incidental way.
In this case, the delegate considered at [54]:
54. It is clear that the claim relates to gathering information where the internet is used for transmitting and receiving data, and a computer is used for data retrieval, processing, presentation and storage of information in a well known manner. The process of automatically generating questions based on assessable criteria, as stated in the description, includes applying a question template into which the text of the relevant assessable criteria may be merged. In a simple form, a question may be generated from the criteria by prepending the text such as ‘How can you show evidence that’.
and so found at [55]:
55. The claimed invention defines a method for gathering information where the data retrieval, processing and storage of information appear to have no physical effect other than that would arise in the computer with standard software in conventional use. Furthermore, there is no substantial effect or transformation in generating the questions by concatenating text matters. While the internet and the computer facilitate the operation of the claimed method by retrieving, generating and conveying information, they are not central to the purpose of the claimed invention. [So unlike the loyalty card in Welcome-Catuity], the claimed invention simply monopolises a scheme where the internet and the computer are used for mere convenience for operating the scheme.
Accordingly, the delegate rejected the application in that form. However, at [59], the delegate considered there could nonetheless be patentable subject matter:
the description of the opposed patent contemplates generating the questions automatically based upon the identification of particular keywords within the assessable criteria, and upon additional contextual information obtained from Evidence Guides, Range Statements and Employability Skills associated with Qualifications and Units of Competency without requiring human intervention.
and so allowed 60 days for amendments to be brought in (the delegate also flagged a potential fair basing problem for the proposed amendment).
Myall Australia Pty Ltd v RPL Central Pty Ltd [2011] APO 48 (link to be provided when available)
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Patent Baristas has a guest post from Bill Bennett at Pizzeys on the Deputy Commissioner’s rejection of a patent application for (as described by the Deputy Commissioner):


“a method for commercialising inventions that includes the step of applying for patent protection. The specification indicates that the method is intended to facilitate the uptake of commercialisation of inventions taking into account the restricted timeframe to file for intellectual property rights and the effect of automatic patent publication. The latter is a reference to the practice in most jurisdictions of publishing patent applications 18 months after their earliest priority date.”


Claim 1 reproduced in the Deputy Commissioner’s decision reads:




1. An invention specific commercialization system to facilitate success of inventions, the system including the steps of:


a) applying for patent protection for the invention in a country which is party to the Paris Convention,


b) conducting a review of specific commercialization process required by the invention,


c) preparing a research and development plan, testing the business dynamics of the invention,


d) conducting prototype testing, developing a prototype cost/benefit analysis,


e) determining product positioning and packaging,


f) conducting a manufacturing checklist,


g) entry of the information collected in steps a) to f) into an electronically fillable checklist having a prescribed time limit for each step to form a commercial entry strategy (CES) with a number of sub-steps, the CES prepared on the basis that each of the sub-steps in the CES are to be completed by a corresponding deadline, all deadlines falling within 30 months from the earliest priority date of the patent application, the checklist being computer-implemented and stored in computer or human readable format in data storage means and associated with processing means to allow updating of the checklist; and


h) policing compliance with the deadlines for the completion of the sub-steps through the production of reminders based on the prescribed time limits in the checklist to ensure that all sub-steps are completed within the deadlines.


At the risk of seeming glib and/or flip, one might think this was a checklist for the commercialisation of “an invention”, where one of the items on the checklist includes applying for patent protection, and using a calendaring system to generate reminders so you don’t miss a deadline.


Wonder what business managers and patent managers have been using Excel, Outlook and any number of computerised database for until now?


Any how, Mr Bennett’s blog, focusing on the “electronically fillable” and “computer-implemented” wording in the claim, contends that the Deputy Commissioner has reinterpreted Grant (you remember: the asset protection method (formerly known as a trust) in light of the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Bilski so that the production of a physical effect will lead to a “manner of manufacture” only where the effect is:


of such substance or quality that the method considered as a whole is “proper subject of letters patent according to the principles which have been developed for the application of s. 6 of the Statute of Monopolies”.


(Do read Mr Bennett’s more detailed consideration.)


However, this seems to confer on the Commissioner a rather wide discretion. Was it really necessary?


Invention Pathways Pty Ltd [2010] APO 10

			

		
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