T 0323/21 - Mathematical device

Key points

• "The invention relates to an applied cipher technique and, in particular, to a method for determining whether a nondecreasing sequence exists, without revealing input data"
• "There is a method, known from the prior art, called secure computation, for computing encrypted results from encrypted data without decrypting any of the encrypted data. Encryption is performed that distributes pieces of a numerical value among a plurality of secure computers which cooperate to perform a computation in such a manner that the result is distributed among the secure computers without reconstructing the numerical value, that is, with the result and the original value being kept encrypted"
•  Claim 1 is directed to "A nondecreasing sequence determining device (2), "
•  The device of claim 1 according to the main request consists of a combination of functional units that cooperate to assess whether a nondecreasing sequence can be created from a sequence of sets of numbers. This is achieved by selecting elements, one by one from each set in the sequence. The claim does not contain any reference to any concrete use of the result. The various functional units of the device are defined by their mathematical roles in the determination of whether or not there is a nondecreasing sequence."
• "The technical nature of the claimed subject-matter is limited to the existence of the software code running on the claimed device."
• "the mathematical functionalities defined in claim 1, to the extent that they do not interact with technical features to produce a technical effect, cannot justify the existence of an inventive step. "
• "The algorithm underlying the claimed device is exclusively of a mathematical nature. It is without any interaction with the device on which it operates. The technicality of the claimed device lies only in its materiality. Concretely, its technicality is limited to the combination of software code with the associated processing unit. The claimed device with its program code implements a purely mathematical method deprived, in its generality, of any technical purpose."
• "Independent claim 1 does not contain any concrete reference to a use of the claimed device and method. Therefore, independently of the fact that text matching is not technical in itself, no technical contribution can be derived from any specific use of the claimed invention if it cannot be derived, explicitly or implicitly, from the claimed subject-matter. "
• " More fundamentally, the effect put forward by the applicant is also not sufficient to confer technical character to a method which is mathematical by nature. In the absence of interaction with the device on which the algorithm is to be run, the recited method does not add to its technical character."
• Note, the ED rejected the application for lack of clarity. The Board's preliminary opinion was that the claims were clear and sufficiently disclosed, with a single sentence about 'technical contribution' under the inventive step. 
• There was no auxiliary request specifically directed to secure computing, it seems.
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EPO 

The link to the decision can be found after the jump.

https://www.epo.org/en/boards-of-appeal/decisions/t210323eu1