Presentation of Information

1The Act excludes a presentation of information from the ambit of patent protection. But the British courts, under the UK Patents Act 1949, have distinguished a mere novelty in information from novel methods of presenting information. (Ciba-Geigy AG (Dürr’s) Applications (1977) RPC 83(CA).) The court explained the difference with the following illustration: (Jacques Kessler’s Application (1973) RPC 413. See also Edgar Rhodes’ Application (1973) RPC 243 where it was held that the invention lay not in the information, but in the idea of presenting such information.)

A distinction is drawn between, for example, a printed book, a book being a manner of manufacture where the only novelty is in the literary content, which it is said cannot on any basis be patentable, and, for example, the first book ever printed in Braille, which it is said would have been, as at its date, a manner of new manufacture, whatever the nature of the literary content of the work in question. (Jacques Kessler’s Application (1973) RPC 413, p 430.)

2This distinction was arrived at by considering a particular presentation of information as being a manner of new manufacture. The wording of s 3(n) will include both novelty in information and novel methods of presenting information. (Terrell on the Law of Patents, fifteenth edn, 2000, p 30.) Information contained in punched cards inserted into a data processing machine cannot be classified as being purely intellectual, literary or artistic, if the object of the punched cards is to ensure that the old machine functions in a particular way which it is alleged is new. (Grevers’ Application (1970) RPC 91, p 97.)