T 0336/14 - Inventive GUI

T 0336/14 - [C]
For the decision, click here. 10.11.2015



Headnote

In the assessment of inventive step of a claim which comprises technical and non-technical features ("mixed invention") and in which the non-technical features relate to cognitive content presented to the user of a graphical user interface (GUI), i.e. relate to "what" is presented rather than "how" something is presented, it has to be analysed whether the GUI together with the content presented credibly assists the user in performing a technical task (related to "why" that content is presented) by means of a continued and/or guided human-machine interaction process (see point 1.2).

Key points

• " To this end, [...] it is relevant to determine whether the cognitive information presented constitutes an operation state, a condition or an event internal to the underlying technical system, prompting the system user to interact with it in a continued and/or guided way for enabling its proper functioning, within the meaning of [...], or, whether it represents a state of a non-technical application run on that technical system [...] . In other words, it has to be established whether the information presented constitutes "technical information", which credibly enables the user to properly operate the underlying technical system and thus has a technical effect, or rather "non-technical information", which is exclusively aimed at the mental activities of the system user as the final addressee."  (internal quotations omitted)

Reasons for the Decision

1. MAIN REQUEST

Claim 1 of this request is identical to claim 1 of the main request as maintained by the opposition division, and comprises the following features (as enumerated by the appellant and the respondent):

1.0) A user interface for an extracorporeal blood treatment machine, [...]

1.12) the plurality of data comprising operating instructions for readying the machine for use;

1.13) the at least two images being pictographs which represent configurations of the machine correlated to the operating instructions.

[...]

1.2 Article 56 EPC: inventive step

The next issue to be resolved is whether distinguishing features 1.12) and 1.13) may render the subject-matter of claim 1 inventive over the corresponding embodiment of D2. The appellant and the respondent quoted a large number of decisions (cf. points III, IV and VIII above) regarding the assessment of inventive step, in particular the matter of presentations of information as such with respect to graphical user interfaces. The board finds it expedient to first look at the factual and legal particularities of those decisions.

[...]

1.2.2 At the outset of its inventive-step analysis, this board would first like to recall that features relating to subject-matter excluded under Article 52(2) EPC, such as "presentations of information", may only contribute to an inventive step if they bring about an overall technical effect, i.e. if they contribute to the technical character of the claim by interacting with its technical features to solve a technical problem. Otherwise, they are to be disregarded in the assessment of inventiveness (see e.g. T 641/00, first headnote and reasons 6; T 154/04, reasons 5(F); T 1143/06 of 1 April 2009, reasons 3.4). This is, in principle, also applied in prominent national decisions of the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) concerned with the matter of "presentations of information" (see e.g. BGH, X ZR 3/12, GRUR 2013, 275 - Routenplanung, reasons III.2; BGH, X ZR 27/12, GRUR 2013, 909 - Fahrzeugnavigationssystem, reasons III.2) and the Court of Appeal of England and Wales dealing with "programs for computers" (see Court of Appeal decision of 8 October 2008 - Symbian Ltd v. Comptroller General of Patents [2008] EWCA Civ 1066, point 15).

In this regard, the respondent, referring to T 119/88 (OJ EPO 1990, 395, reasons 4.1), is right in saying that, in the assessment of whether or not a feature provides a technical contribution, the feature shall not be taken by itself, but its technical character shall be decided by the effect it brings about after being added to an object which did not comprise that feature before. Therefore, the board has to determine whether or not the distinguishing features of claim 1 bring about a credible technical effect and hence solve a technical problem.

1.2.3 It is immediately apparent that the information presented according to features 1.12) and 1.13) of claim 1, i.e. the operating instructions and the corresponding pictographs, are cognitive rather than functional data in the sense of T 1194/97, since they address directly the user of the blood treatment machine and are consequently meaningful only to a human mind. It is also evident that, contrary to the respondent's view, the distinguishing features are related to the content of the information, i.e. to "what" is presented, rather than to the manner in which the information is presented, i.e. to "how". The details of "how", i.e. displaying pictographs in the second area correlated to the visually associated machine-related data (i.e. tab labels) displayed in the first area, are already known from D2 (see point 1.1.41.1.4 above). Accordingly, those decisions which are related predominantly to the manner of presenting specific content, are of little relevance for ruling on the present case (i.e. decisions T 643/00, T 928/03, T 1143/06, T 1749/06 and T 1741/08). As to the applicability of decisions T 643/00 and T 928/03 to the present case, the board refers to point 1.2.61.2.6 below.

1.2.4 The next question to be answered is whether the underlying user interface and the content presented credibly assist the user in performing a technical task by means of a continued and guided human-machine interaction process. So, this question is basically related to "why" (i.e. "for what purpose") the content is presented.

To this end, as implied e.g. by decisions T 599/93 (reasons 4) and T 1073/06 (reasons 5.4), it is relevant to determine whether the cognitive information presented constitutes an operation state, a condition or an event internal to the underlying technical system, prompting the system user to interact with it in a continued and/or guided way for enabling its proper functioning, within the meaning of T 115/85 (OJ EPO 1990, 30, headnote I), T 362/90 of 13 October 1992 (see reasons 4.1) and T 887/92 of 19 April 1994 (see reasons 3.1), or, whether it represents a state of a non-technical application run on that technical system (e.g. the state of a simulation model as in T 1073/06, reasons 5.4; betting states in a casino game as in T 1704/06, reasons 2.2; business conditions as in T 528/07, reasons 5.4). In other words, it has to be established whether the information presented constitutes "technical information", which credibly enables the user to properly operate the underlying technical system and thus has a technical effect, or rather "non-technical information", which is exclusively aimed at the mental activities of the system user as the final addressee.

1.2.5 In the present case, the operating instructions (and the corresponding pictographs) may admittedly somehow support the user in operating the underlying technical device, namely the blood treatment machine. Hence, in a very broad sense, those data could at least linguistically be construed as "technical information", as the respondent suggested. However, not everything that supports a technical task has itself a technical character (cf. T 1741/08, reasons 2.1.12). Rather, the information of features 1.12) and 1.13) is evidently not related at all to any internal system state concerning the proper functioning of the underlying machine in the sense of T 115/85, let alone to a desirable or valid state within the meaning of T 362/90 or T 887/92. Thus, in accordance with T 1143/06 (see reasons 3.4), making reference to T 619/98, an action (possibly) performed by a user in response to a message concerning the technical functioning of an apparatus does not necessarily render technical the information conveyed. The board also agrees with the appellant (referring to T 1143/06, reasons 5.2) that the mere use of an electronic screen, instead of a piece of paper, for conveying information to the user does not make the information displayed more technical, so that the claimed display of operating instructions could well, without changing the resulting overall effect, be replaced with a technical manual on paper through which the readers may flip as they please.

As to the "why" issue, the respondent argued at the oral proceedings before the board that the technical task underlying claim 1 was to "help a nurse in setting up the blood treatment machine in a safe and efficient way". This was done by providing "enhanced information" according to features 1.12) and 1.13) on a small-size display screen, referring to page 16, second paragraph of the description as originally filed ("In the illustrated embodiment, in which the touch-screen is 12 inches with 800x600 pixel, the resolution of the second area 162 of the screen, which ... occupies an area of 250*405 pixel, is about 83 pixels per inch"). In that context, the board would first like to point out that claim 1 in general and its distinguishing features in particular are not limited to any size of the display screen or to any resolution of the content presented. Furthermore, the board notes that the content presented, i.e. operating instructions (and the corresponding pictographs), constitutes pre-stored static information according to the present invention. Hence, neither is the selection of any operating instruction by a user activating the corresponding touch key conditional on any instant internal state of the blood treatment machine, nor does the automated display of the respective pictograph provide any details on the current operating state of the machine. Since, according to the wording of claim 1, the user may activate any touch key associated with any operating instruction at any time, there is even no temporal order to be observed with regard to those instructions, paving the way for any type of misuse on the part of the user and resulting maloperation of the machine, contrary to the alleged aim of a safe and efficient machine set-up.

As a consequence, the information provided according to features 1.12) and 1.13) cannot credibly support a continued and guided human-machine interaction process. Thus, it cannot assist the user in performing the above-mentioned technical task. The board concludes that displaying that information may, at most, aid the user in better comprehending and/or memorising the steps to be taken for setting up the blood treatment machine or, as the respondent put it, facilitate understanding of the steps required for proper machine preparation, minimise errors of interpretation or improve the "average user's" intelligibility about what he is supposed to do during the various machine set-up phases. Hence, it only addresses the human mental process of an "average user", however the latter is supposed to be defined based on personal skills and preferences (see e.g. T 407/11 of 10 April 2014, reasons 2.1.4). Contrary to the respondent's view, this must be considered a non-technical effect.

In that respect, the board cannot follow the logic of the decision under appeal, according to which the distinguishing features are not non-technical, apparently for the sole reason that the corresponding machine's memory storing the operating instructions to prepare the machine for use was a "technical entity" and was "technically changed by entering said specific data" [...] this "phenomenon" regarding a computer memory would certainly also hold true for entering, for example, purely business-related data into that memory, which would not however bring about a technical effect other than storing that non-technical data by technical means. It therefore appears to the board that the above reasoning of the opposition division is more concerned with the presence of an "invention" within the meaning of Article 52(2) and (3) EPC rather than with detecting non-technical features within the framework of assessing inventive step under Article 56 EPC (see e.g. Guidelines for Examination in the European Patent Office, September 2013, G-II, 2 and G-VII, 5.4).

Hence, distinguishing features 1.12) and 1.13) constitute presentations of information as such, which, according to the established jurisprudence of the Boards of Appeal, cannot be taken into account in the assessment of inventiveness.