EP 3 017 406 A1 filed as PCT/EP2014/064116 and published under WO 2015/000990 A1 relates to a system and method for state-transition-controlled processing of objects.
Brief outline of the case
The application was refused because the subject-matter of claim 1 was an obvious implementation of non-technical business constraints in the workflow system of D1=US 2010/0161558.
The Board summoned for OP on 30.-31.01.2024 to handle the case jointly with case T 0379/21 (Not yet published).
The board confirmed the refusal.
The ED’s decision
In summary, the ED argued that the claimed subject-matter related to abstract information modelling concepts at meta-language level in the context of workflows.
The ED pointed out that the design and modelling of workflows for business processes represented activities in the sphere of methods for doing business.
The applicant’s point of view
The application does not disclose the modelling of a business process as such. The invention rather relates to the automatic execution of a process with technical means and with an electronic control system.
The object of the invention is to provide a technical possibility that allows a workflow to be changed in a controlled manner, that is, the electronic control system enables dynamic reaction to and adjustment of the automated workflow.
The solution of the invention involves “operating tags” which represent a protected, dynamically modifiable and tagged area which the electronic control system uses, if possible, to adapt the automation of the workflow.
The applicant considered that when G 1/19 states that any technical effect going beyond the implementation of the process on a computer may be considered for IS, it meant anything beyond a 1:1 mapping between the implementation and a step of the business method being implemented.
In other words, any subject-matter that does not “map” to a step in the business method is technical.
In other words, following G 1/19, a method that changes something which is processed, has a technical effect and is therefore technical. The invention introduces the concept of “operating tags” which represent a technical possibility of interaction with a process task.
In contrast to D1, the invention does not need a complex folder structure for realising a workflow system.
The board’s decision
The board noted that replacing “control system” with “electronic control system”, “object” with “data object”, and deleting “at least partially” in combination with the feature of an encapsulated data structure might give the claim the appearance of a higher level of technicality. For the board they do not add anything inventive and agreed with the ED’s decision on the refused claim.
The board had also doubts that the changes were clearly defined in the description, in particular in a situation where there is no single technical embodiment explaining how the invention works.
The board agreed with the interpretation given by the ED of the claims. As a whole, the application is not limited to “data objects” and to “tasks” which are processed by an electronic system. The description seems to explain that a selected object is processed by executing one or more process tasks by means of a control system from one process state to the subsequent process state.
However, at the same time, the description discloses that a selected object can comprise, e.g., at least one product and/or technical object and/or data and/or claim and/or account and/or job and/or contract and/or request and/or reporting object etc., and that tasks may be executed by a dedicated signalling to specific people to perform activities/tasks on the objects, as well process tasks are executed by means of runtime execution modules.
The applicant’s argument that the present invention is not concerned with the modelling of workflows is not convincing, because the description explicitly mentions that the process flow is modelled and generated by means of the process management engine, including or based upon specific pro cessing rules and technical instructions stored in the database.
Moreover, it is explained that industrial, scientific, computational or business processes are “automatically operated” by means of the central control apparatus, but the work flow process is said to be composed of, among others, a sequence of process- or work tasks and interactions with human resources. The term “automatically operated” therefore requires careful interpretation.
The board agreed that the “implementation” of a business method implies some sort of mapping between non-technical steps of the business method and their technical realisation. Decision G 1/19 has said something about this mapping, at least in the forward direction, at point 51, when it rephrases the requirement for technical effect as “technical effect going beyond the simulation’s straightforward or unspecified implementation on a standard computer system”.
Thus, even a 1:1 mapping might be inventive if it is not “straight-forward”, e.g. not standard programming or routine modification of the technical means used, or “unspecified”, e.g. not simply as “means for carrying out the step”.
But, looking for a mapping from “implementation” to the step of a business method in the reverse direction does not make sense as the steps of the non-technical activity do not have to be specified explicitly.
They would include any steps that the business person would come up with in a non-technical workflow. The way this is handled is by considering the mapping of the implementation to the effect of the step and to examine whether the effect has any technical character, or whether it would be covered by what the business person would consider as part of the non-technical process.
This is, in other words, the standard COMVIK approach where one looks at the effect of a feature in order to pose a technical problem, which might simply be the implementation of the feature, for which the above-mentioned mapping in the forward direction meant in G 1/19 applies.
Comments
The applicant’s interpretation of G 1/19 is very interesting. For the applicant, anything beyond a 1:1 mapping between the implementation and a step of the business method is technical. In other words, any subject-matter that does not “map” to a step in the business method is technical.
The board agreed that there might a kind of forward 1:1 mapping as suggested in G 1/19, but did not agree that any subject-matter that does not “map” to a step in the business method is technical. For the board, the standard COMVIK approach still applies.
According to reliable information, the responsibility of dealing with “business methods” has been transferred to another directorate. The aim is manifest: increasing the number of grants in this domain.
T 279/22
https://www.epo.org/en/boards-of-appeal/decisions/t210279eu1
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