Last Mile Logistics Comes to the End of the Road – Dei Gratia v Commissioner of Patents [2024] FCA 1145

In Dei Gratia Pty Ltd v Commissioner of Patents [2024] FCA 1145 (Dei Gratia), the Federal Court of Australia dismissed an appeal by Dei Gratia and confirmed the decision of the Commissioner of Patents to refuse the patent application for ‘last mile logistics’. The claimed invention purported to facilitate the delivery of goods from the last point in a distribution chain to end consumers. By selecting a preferred local outlet, customers would be able to overcome delivery issues such as the need to be at home at a specific time and the protection of perishable goods that have been left at doors in high temperatures.

The decision shed light on the difference between an invention that aims to advance computer technologies and new business and logistic methods. To be patentable, the invention must be a “manner of new manufacture.” In other words, it “must be more than an abstract idea; it must involve the creation of an artificial state of affairs where the computer is integral to the invention, rather than a mere tool in which the invention is performed.”

Submissions

Dei Gratia argued that its claim is not a mere idea to improve the delivery system, but rather a “practical implementation to achieve that idea.” It also contended that computerisation should not be limited to the improvement of the computer technology itself.

The Commissioner of Patents submitted that the claimed invention is not different from a regular business scheme implemented by generic and already known computer technologies and that “no new technology in the sense of improved functioning of computer equipment was involved.”

Decision

Section 18(1)(a) of the Patents Act 1990 defines invention as “any manner of new manufacture.” On the question of whether the claimed invention was, in fact, a manner of new manufacture, the court pointed out that although the application does not characterise the invention as a new “computer-implemented” idea, in substance it nevertheless places the computer as a central part of the logistic system, which would not function without the use of a computer. In this regard, both parties accepted that there would be no technical ingenuity involved in selecting modified delivery outlets.

In rejecting the application, the court made a clear distinction between an innovative scheme and patentable invention. As the claimed invention addressed a business problem (an improved logistics scheme), rather than a technical one, it was not patentable as it could not be characterised as a manner of new manufacture. The decision confirms that the implementation of the logistics scheme on a computer that does not involve any advance in computer technology is not patentable.

By Rachelle Downie and Thais Fernandes