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United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions >> IGT (Patent) [2007] UKIntelP o09907 (5 April 2007) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIntelP/2007/o09907.html Cite as: [2007] UKIntelP o9907, [2007] UKIntelP o09907 |
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For the whole decision click here: o09907
Summary
This application relates to an electronic gaming machine such as a “slot machine” wherein players receive monetary awards which are displayed, for example, in the form of a three digit number. The player can then choose whether to keep the original award or to modify or gamble the award. A number of methods are provided for modifying the award, one of which is to re-arrange or scramble the original three digits to form a new number e.g. the digits 416 may be scrambled to become 614, 164 etc. Alternatively, the machine may modify the original award by regeneration i.e. generating a complete new set of digits, by adding or subtracting a digit, or by applying a predetermined multiplier.
The hearing officer held that the invention failed the third step of the Aerotel/Macrossan [2006] EWCA Civ 1371 test because the contribution, “a method selected and used to modify the award, and in particular the operation of regenerating or scrambling the digits to produce a new award”, related to no more than a scheme, rule or method for playing a game and a program for a computer as such.
