Key points
- The applicant is Swiss Re.
- The Board: "The volcano activities in Iceland 2010 and the subsequent closure of airspace led to an estimated loss of 1.7 billion dollars for the airline industry. Between 15 and 21 April 2010 almost the entire European airspace was closed resulting in cancellation of all flights in, to and from Europe. The invention relates to dealing with such airport closures and flight plan changes related to natural disaster events."
- "It is an aim of the invention to reduce the risk that airline companies go bankrupt due to lack of cash for operation during or after natural disaster events. The airlines seek risk transfer by means of insurance technology to cover such unforeseeable events and to ensure operation of the aircraft fleets."
- I'm not sure why the board uses "insurance technology" here.
- "The invention proposes automatically paying financial compensation to the affected business units, i.e. airlines and their fleets, by monitoring relevant airport data, defining critical thresholds and automating cover payments in case of airport closures."
- The distinguishing features include d) "The invention proposes automatically paying financial compensation to the affected business units, i.e. airlines and their fleets, by monitoring relevant airport data, defining critical thresholds and automating cover payments in case of airport closures."
- "Features (d) to (f) as such and disconnected from the (technical) automated system are related to a business method."
- "Non-technical features within the meaning of Article 52(2)(c) EPC, i.e. features related to business methods, are allowed in the context of other technical features, but cannot contribute to inventive step. These features can thus be included into the formulation of the task (see, inter alia, G 1/19 [reasons 31], T 0641/00, G 3/08, Case Law of the Boards of Appeal, 9th edition 2019, sections I.D.9.1.2 to I.D.9.1.4). According to T 0641/00, the aim to be achieved in a non-technical field may legitimately appear in the formulation of the problem as part of the framework of the technical problem. Therefore, the non-technical features (O) to (V) ("damage cover" and "automated payment") can be included into the task formulation as a framework condition to be fulfilled."
- The Board, in the headnote: "The business person sets the framework of the problem to be solved by their business model (insurance conditions) and thus reduces - by setting specific boundary conditions - the degrees of freedom of the skilled computer specialist. The technically skilled person, who has to solve the objective technical problem of implementation, therefore has no latitude in selecting the corresponding (physical) parameters"
EPO T 0288/19 -
The link to the decision is provided after the jump, as well as (an extract of) the text of the decision.
source http://justpatentlaw.blogspot.com/2022/05/t-028819-notional-business-person.html
