Decision Nº O/859/21 from Intellectual Property Office - (Patent decisions), 21 December 2021
| Judge | Mrs C L Davies |
| Patent Number | GB1514006.4 |
| Date | 21 December 2021 |
| Administrative Decision Number | O/859/21 |
| Parties | Gelliner Limited |
BL O/859/21
21 December 2021
PATENTS ACT 1977
APPLICANT
Gelliner Limited
ISSUE
Whether patent application GB 1514006.4 complies
with section 1(2)
HEARING OFFICER
Dr Carol L Davies
DECISION
Introduction
1 Patent application GB 1514006.4 (“the application”) entitled "Exchanging Physical
Cash with an Electronic Funds Account" was filed on 7 August 2015. It was
published as GB 2543021 A on 12 April 2017.
2 Following a number of rounds of correspondence between the examiner and the
applicant's attorney, the examiner remains of the view that the claimed invention is
excluded from patentability under section 1(2).
3 With the position unresolved the applicant asked to be heard and the matter came
before me at a hearing on 1 September 2021. The issue of excluded matter before
me was set out in the examiner’s pre-hearing report of 23 July 2021. The applicant
was represented at the hearing by attorney Mr Edward Round of Marks & Clerk LLP.
I thank the attorney for filing skeleton arguments prior to the hearing. The examiner
Mr David Maskery was present and I was assisted by Mr Marc Collins.
The invention
4 The invention relates to a method by which a person can obtain physical cash when
an automated teller machine (ATM) is not readily available. The method is a means
by which a withdrawer, i.e. in individual wishing to withdraw money as physical cash
from their account, can obtain the cash without having to access an ATM. When a
withdrawer wishes to withdraw cash, they use a computing device to send a cash
request to an application server. The server then sends requests for cash to
depositor devices within a set range of the withdrawer device. When the server
receives a quote of a cash withdrawal fee for the cash withdrawal from a depositor
device it forwards it to the withdrawer device. When the withdrawer device receives
the quote, it sends an acceptance of the quote to the application server. The server
then sends instruction so that the withdrawer and depositor can meet. When the
withdrawer has received the cash from the depositor, messages are sent by both the
withdrawer and the depositor to the application server to confirm that the cash
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