{"id":31506,"date":"2021-03-25T11:27:03","date_gmt":"2021-03-25T10:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.studiotorta.com\/computer-implemented-simulations-decision-g-1-19-of-the-enlarged-board-of-appeal-of-the-epo\/"},"modified":"2022-09-29T13:47:50","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T11:47:50","slug":"computer-implemented-simulations-decision-g-1-19-of-the-enlarged-board-of-appeal-of-the-epo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.studiotorta.com\/en\/computer-implemented-simulations-decision-g-1-19-of-the-enlarged-board-of-appeal-of-the-epo\/","title":{"rendered":"Computer-implemented simulations – Decision G 1\/19 of the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the EPO"},"content":{"rendered":"

On March 10, 2021, the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) of the European Patent Office issued decision G 1\/19 concerning computer-implemented simulations, substantially confirming that the established case law on computer-implemented inventions (the so-called COMVIK approach<\/em>) applies to computer-implemented simulations as well.<\/p>\n

The decision arises from an appeal against refusal in the first instance of the European patent application no. 03793825.5<\/a><\/u>, related to the computer-implemented simulation of the movement of a pedestrian crowd through an environment, such as a building.<\/p>\n

The Examining Division refused the application based on the fact that the instructions executed by the computer system were found not to contribute to the technical character of the invention; the only technical aspect was found in the presence of a computer system for carrying out the (non-technical) simulation; accordingly, the invention as a whole was deemed to lack an inventive step.<\/p>\n

The Applicant appealed and, in the related proceedings, the Technical Board of Appeal referred questions on the patentability of computer-implemented simulations to the EBA. The questions were about whether the computer-implemented simulation claimed as such<\/em> could solve a technical problem and produce a technical effect, in particular when the simulation is part of a design process, and which should be the relevant criteria for assessing that a technical problem is actually solved.<\/p>\n

The EBA summarized that, in agreement with the COMVIK approach (T 641\/00, OJ EPO 2003, 352), an invention needs to have a technical character or produce a technical effect in order to qualify as technical<\/em>. In particular, the features distinguishing the invention from the prior art need to contribute to the technical character in order to be considered for the assessment of the inventive step.<\/p>\n

Contribution to the technical character may either be achieved by a direct link of the output produced by the computer-implemented simulation with the physical reality, or by other technical effects within the computer system. A further relevant aspect that can positively determine the technicality of a computer-implemented simulation is whether the simulation contributes to the solution of a technical problem; even a simulation that does not generate an output directly linked to the physical world may still solve a technical problem (e.g. by providing an output conveying technical information to the user) and therefore can be found to be inventive.<\/p>\n

The EBA came to the conclusion that an assessment of the technical contribution of the individual features (which may contribute to the technical character by either providing a direct link with physical reality or solving a problem) using the COMVIK approach is decisive to decide on the patentability of the computer-implemented simulation.<\/p>\n

For assessing if a simulation contributes to the technical character of the claimed invention, the EBA concluded that it is not decisive whether a technical or a non-technical system or process is simulated, and that the criteria of \u201ctechnicality\u201d are to be evaluated case-by-case.<\/p>\n

Finally, the EBA stated that the above principles apply equally if the claimed computer-implemented simulation is part of a design process (the mere fact that the simulation is part of a design process being therefore irrelevant).<\/p>\n

In conclusion, the EBA ruled that the already existing and well-established COMVIK approach applies to computer-implemented simulations, whose patentability can be assessed using the same criteria as any other computer-implemented inventions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On March 10, 2021, the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) of the European Patent Office issued decision G 1\/19 concerning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.studiotorta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.studiotorta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.studiotorta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studiotorta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studiotorta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.studiotorta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33725,"href":"https:\/\/www.studiotorta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31506\/revisions\/33725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studiotorta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.studiotorta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studiotorta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studiotorta.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}