Patentable or not? : IPO gives a reasoned order

The Controller of Patents rejects an application by Yahoo for a method of scheduling and displaying an online presence status of a user of an instant messaging application.

Yahoo’s method of scheduling and displaying an online presence status of a user of an instant messaging (IM) application under Section 3(k) and 3(n) of the Patents Act was denied by the Controller of Patents.

The reasons offered were: the steps of setting, determining, displaying were held to be nothing but computer algorithmic steps for giving a solution to the detailed problem related to scheduling an displaying an online presence status of a user of an instant messaging application; algorithm related claims are even wider than the computer programmes claimed by themselves; the hardware components were a general purpose computer.

Authored by Stuti Dhyani.

This article was published on Patents Rewind.