The much-awaited decision of the Court of Appeal in Neal Macrossan and Aerotel v Telco Holdings and Others was rendered on 27 October, 2006, and on 2 November, 2006, the UK Patent Office issued a notice announcing an immediate change in the way examiners should assess whether inventions have patentable subject matter.
Article 52(1) of the European Patent Convention (EPC), which has its equivalent in Section 1(2) of the Patents Act 1977, requires that for an invention to be patentable, it must be susceptible of industrial application which is new and involves an inventive step.
