|
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, November 11 2012 @ 02:44 PM EST |
Well, perhaps you could point out where i can see the decision which shows that
they lost with regard to the drill bit design patent i'm nattering on about.
you're better than i am, if you can, because i'm at a loss where to find it. i
think we may be talking about different cases.
Re Halliburton Energy
Services Inc.
18. A number of observations are important at this
stage. First although the ultimate point of all this design and simulation work
is no doubt to make a drill bit to the optimised design, the claim does not
include the step of manufacturing a drill bit to the design. If the claim was
amended to include such a feature then Mr Mitcheson accepts (I think) that it
would satisfy the requirements of patentability with which this case is
concerned. However Halliburton do not wish to include such a limitation.
21. … Accordingly I find that claim 1 (and its
brethren) are limited to carrying out the simulations on a computer. They are
computer implemented methods.
70. Approached on the
correct, narrow basis, the mental act exclusion is irrelevant in this case. The
claimed method cannot be performed by purely mental means and that is the end of
the matter. Put another way, the contribution is a computer implemented method
and as such cannot fall within the mental act exclusion.
71. That does not
mean it is necessarily immune from the computer program exclusion but that is a
different matter. Is it more than a computer program as such? The answer is
plainly yes. It is a method of designing a drill bit. Such methods are not
excluded from patentability by Art 52/s1(2) and the contribution does not fall
solely within the excluded territory. Drill bit design is not a business method,
nor a scheme for playing a game nor (as I have held) is this claim a scheme for
performing a mental act.
72. Mr Mitcheson did submit that the method was a
mathematical method. I note that Mr Thorpe did not think so. No Respondent's
Notice was filed but Mr Davis was content to deal with the point in any event. I
agree with Mr Thorpe. Although obviously some mathematics is involved, the
contribution is not solely a mathematical method (on top of being a computer
program) because the data on which the mathematics is performed has been
specified in the claim in such a way as to represent something concrete (a drill
bit design etc.). That is an important difference between the position in Gale
and the position here. In Gale the claim was broadly drafted and it was nothing
more than a mathematical method implemented on a computer.
Please,
read the decision and tell me i'm wrong. i'll be happy to admit it. i'd prefer
to be corrected than disillusioned and confused and not know it.
j
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
|
|