T 42/10 - Assessing players' performance is not technical

This appeal is directed against the decision of the examining division to revoke EP app. no. 06270014.1.

Claim 1 was directed to:

"A computer-implemented method of determining an indication of the relative skill (205) of at least a first player and a second player of a game based on the outcome of one or more such games involving those players said method comprising the steps of: ... [various method steps including the use of a factor graph and calculation rules]"

In the assessment of inventive step, the Appeal Board had to assess in how far the features of the claim had technical character (and so could contribute to inventive step). 

They generally summarised their approach to the assessment as follows:

The Board's approach to assessing questions of what is and what is not technical about a computer-implemented method, in this case, asks the same questions as [in a UK case]. The first is: what does the method as a whole do, and does it produce an overall technical result? The second is: if there is no overall technical result, does the method at least have a technical effect within the computer? (r. 2.13.2)

The appellant argued that the assessment of the performance of a player of a video game could be regarded a "measurement", which was a technical purpose. They relied on, i.a., T 619/02, par 2.4.1.

The Board did not follow the argument, because in their view, T 619/02 did not say that all "measurements" are necessarily technical. There are also non-technical measurements, e.g., the measurement of whether one political party is more or less popular than another (r. 2.4).

The appellant also argued that the claimed method applied "factor graphs", which would speed up the computation. This would be a second technical aspect of the claimed invention. 

Regarding this argument, the Board stated:

In its full generality, speed of computation is a mathematical problem. It may be the case that a computer has a particular processor that is particularly good, or particularly poor, at some (class of) operations. Recasting a mathematical method so as to take advantage of what the processor does quickly, or to avoid what it does slowly, might involve technical considerations. In such a case, the recast method, when performed on that particular processor, might not be "just" mathematical but also be technical. (r. 2.11)

This confirms the general approach taken by the EPO that making a mathematical method more efficient is normally not a technical purpose. 

They then further assessed whether the overall aim of the method, i.e., keeping the players interested in the video game, was a technical aim. Here they very clearly stated:

The overall aim of keeping players interested is not technical. (r. 2.14.1)

Given that the overall aim of the claimed method and the features by which it is achieved were both non-technical, the only technical feature that was left to support inventive step was use of a computer. Since this is notorious knowledge, claim 1 was considered to lack inventive step.

The appeal was dismissed.

The full text of the decision can be found here.