Software Patents: Adobe Systems Incorporated's Application
Intellectual Property Office Crown copyright: all rights reserved, reproduced with kind permission of the IPO Jane Lambert Intellectual Property Office (Mrs C L Davies) Re Adobe Systems Inc.'s Application O/549/19 19 Sept 2019 This was an appeal by Adobe Systems Incorporated against the examiner's refusal to allow its application for a patent for a method and system for recommending software actions to create an image and recommending images to demonstrate the effects of software actions to proceed to grant. The examiner objected to the application on the grounds that it was for a program for a computer and a mathematical method within the meaning of s.1 (2) (a) and (c) of the Patents Act 1977. That subsection declares that mathematical methods and programs for computers among other things are not inventions for the purposes of the Act but that declaration is subject to the proviso that it "shall prevent anything from being treated as a...