Business Method Patents in Australia: Mere Computer Implementation Not Enough
Research Affiliates LLC v Commissioner of Patents [2014] FCAFC 150
On 10 November 2014, the Australian Full Federal Court (Court) held that a method of creating an index of securities using a standard computer was a ‘scheme’, and, hence, not a patentable invention.
The Court applied the Australian High Court test from National Research Development Corporation v Commissioner of Patents (1959) 102 CLR 252 that a patentable invention must produce an “artificially created state of affairs”. The Court said that this test is not satisfied by mechanistic application of artificiality or physical effect, but by understanding the claimed invention as a matter of substance not form. Read More