Australia's High Court divided over gaming invention patentability
Slot machine invention causes rare even split among Justices | Patent eligibility in the spotlight as court can’t agree.
The High Court of Australia has dismissed an appeal against a Federal Court of Australia ruling that an electronic gaming machine (EGM) invention doesn’t constitute patentable subject matter.
Back in November last year, the Full Court of the Federal Court held that the patent—which covered user interaction and a bonus game that is triggered by a certain event—by Aristocrat Technologies Australia was not patent-eligible subject matter.
The Federal Circuit held that the provision of the feature game was implemented by means of a computer program, not a mechanical apparatus.
According to the Federal Court, the EGM (which is the modern form of a poker or slot machine) was effectively a “computer”.
To be patent-eligible, the subject matter claimed needed to concern “an improvement in computer technology”. The majority held that while the claimed invention was computer-implemented, it was not an advance in computer technology and so not patentable.
Aristocrat Technologies Australia appealed against the decision but, in a ruling handed down on August 17, the High Court affirmed the Federal Court’s decision.
However, the ruling does not seem to have provided the anticipated clarity as it was effectively a default decision. As the decision was equally divided in opinion, s 23(2)(a) of the Judiciary Act 1903 requires that the ruling appealed against must be affirmed.
Three of the justices would have dismissed the appeal. They characterised the invention, in light of the specification as a whole and the common general knowledge, as nothing other than a claim for a new system or method of gaming.
The only thing differentiating it from the common general knowledge was the unpatentable idea of the feature game.
The other three justices would have allowed the appeal, characterising the invention as an EGM incorporating an interdependent player interface and a game controller which included feature games and configurable symbols. That operation involved an artificial state of affairs and a useful result amounting to a manner of manufacture.
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