T 1958/13 - Technical effect of user interface

EPO T 1958/13 

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• The invention relates to copy/pasting with a touch-screen display (e.g. smartphone). The distinguish feature is "the text data within an area between the first and the second position of the dragging motion is cut or deleted based on the direction of the dragging motion." 
• The Board states that the effects of simplifying the user's operation, improving the user experience and providing more user-convenient text editing functions, are in principle technical effects because "in the end they aim at providing tools which serve or assist user activities" 
• However, the Board finds that the claimed technical effects are not credibly obtained because "whether they are actually achieved depends exclusively on subjective user skills or preferences".

Summary of Facts and Submissions

VI. Claim 1 of the main request reads as follows:

"A terminal, comprising:
a touch-screen display configured to be touched by a user, and
a controller configured to determine a portion of the touch-screen display that is touched during a dragging motion by the user,
characterized in that the controller is configured
- to recognize the dragging motion in which the user touch-drags from a first position to a second position on the touch-screen display,
- to determine a direction of the dragging motion on the touch-screen display, and
- to perform a delete or cut operation based on the direction of the dragging motion on the touch-screen display in order to delete or cut the text data between the first and second positions."

Reasons for the Decision
[...]

2.2.3 Document D2 teaches that the text data between the start point and the end location (corresponding to the "first position" as claimed) of the initial stroke ("stroke 60"), rather than the subsequent stroke, is supposed to be copied or cut (see D2,[0029] and [0033] in conjunction with Figs. 6 and 9). Therefore, the board agrees with the examining division and the appellant that D2 fails to disclose that

i) the text data within an area between the first and the second position of the dragging motion is cut or deleted based on the direction of the dragging motion.

Hence, the subject-matter of claim 1 is considered to be novel vis-à-vis D2 (Article 54 EPC 1973).

2.2.4 From distinguishing feature i) it follows that the drag gesture according to claim 1, i.e. dragging from the beginning of the text to be removed until the end of it in a certain direction, is made up of a single stroke. By contrast, the drag operation according to D2, i.e. first dragging from the beginning of the respective text to the end of it in a certain direction (i.e. to the right) and then dragging from the end of that text in a different direction (i.e. upwards or downwards), relies essentially on two strokes.

2.2.5 The appellant argued at the oral proceedings before the board that the so-called "single-drag gesture" according to feature i) had the effect of making text editing more convenient or simpler for the user and thus better compared to the solution of D2.

However, the board does not consider the alleged effects attributed to distinguishing feature i) like simplifying the user's operation [...], improving the user experience or providing more user-convenient text editing functions [...] to be persuasive. 

Although the board deems those effects, in principle, to be technical effects, since in the end they aim at providing tools which serve or assist user activities (see e.g. T 643/00 of 16 October 2003, point 16), in the present case the question whether they are actually achieved depends exclusively on subjective user skills or preferences. Therefore, the board is not satisfied that they may be regarded as objectively credible technical effects for the purpose of formulating the objective problem to be solved (cf. T 1567/05 of 30 April 2008, point 3.6; T 1841/06 of 21 January 2011, point 5, third paragraph; T 407/11 of 10 April 2014, point 2.1.4).

For example, one user would prefer to delete or cut a certain text as fast as possible, without worrying about a possible error in selecting the text to be removed and thus an unintended deletion. For this user the single-drag gesture would be appropriate. Another user would however be more concerned with the precise selection of the text before actually removing that text. Such a user would rather opt for a two-stroke drag operation in order to be able to check beforehand whether the text to be removed has been correctly selected.