Decision Nº O/104/18 from Intellectual Property Office - (Patent decisions), 15 February 2018
| Judge | Mr P Thorpe |
| Court | Intellectual Property Office (United Kingdom) |
| Patent Number | GB1401780.0 |
| Administrative Decision Number | O/104/18 |
| Date | 15 February 2018 |
| Parties | Avaya Inc. |
BL O/104/18
15 February 2018
APPLICANT
Avaya Inc
ISSUE
Whether patent application GB1401780.0 complies
with sections 1(1)(b), 1(2)(c), 14(5)(c) and 76(2) of
the Patents Act 1977
HEARING OFFICER
Phil Thorpe
DECISION
Introduction
1 Patent application GB1401780.0 entitled “Timeline interface for multi-modal
collaboration” was filed on 3rd February 2014 claiming priority from US application
13/760,668 which was filed on 6th February 2013. The GB application was published
on 1st October 2014 having publication number GB2512454.
2 Despite a number of rounds of correspondence between the examiner and the
applicant’s attorney, and amendments of the claims, the applicant was unable to
satisfy the examiner that the application met the requirements of the Patents Act
1977 (the Act). In particular the examiner was not satisfied that the claimed invention
is inventive, that it is not excluded from patentability, that it doesn’t contain added
subject matter, and that is supported by the description.
3 With the position unresolved, the applicant, in correspondence dated 31st October
2017, has asked for a decision on the papers. The examiner subsequently
summarised their objections in an examination report dated the 12th December 2017.
4 A discretionary extension to the compliance period was requested on 31st October
2017 to extend the compliance period to 6th December 2017. A further request for
another discretionary extension was filed on the 6th February. I can confirm that both
of these requests have been accepted and that the compliance period therefore
extends to 6th February 2018.
The invention
5 The invention relates to a conference management system and method for
displaying a record of conference events. The start of a conference is identified by a
conference bridge. For example, the start of the conference is identified when a host
dials into the conference bridge. A timeline is created by a timeline generator for the
conference based on a first event that occurs at the start of the conference. The
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