Case 1: The patent that wasn’t a software patent.

The Challenge

Our client developed an innovative software algorithm that could look at the output of a CT scanner and detect the patient's breathing motion in the raw images that resulted. The algorithm could then re-order the raw images so as to create a series of CT scans showing the different stages of the patient's breathing cycle, or analyse a specific image to say where the patient was in their breathing cycle.

This was very valuable. It meant that tumours in and around the lungs could be tracked and treated more effectively.

However, the invention was some software, and software isn't patentable. Or is it?

The Solution

We drafted a patent application that described both the software algorithm itself, and also the diagnostic apparatus into which it could be integrated. They are inseparable! However, the patent application claimed the diagnostic apparatus itself, not the software (as such), so avoided that exclusion from patentability.

The result?

Success! Patents have now been granted in The European Patent Office, the USA and Japan

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