Apparatus for Managing Transportation Vehicles

Amsted Rail Company, Inc. [2021] APO 25

 

The Hearing Officer applied various questions and tests in considering whether the alleged invention met the manner of manufacture requirement.  All the questions and tests were answered in the negative.  The ‘technical feature’ questions were applied as was the ‘substance of the invention’ test.  The Applicant’s submissions made in relation to the advantages were seen to reside more in there being a ‘practical and useful result’ rather than a solution to a ‘technical problem’.  The ‘substance of the invention’ was the overriding test.  The common general knowledge was referred to in arriving at the decision (see Rokt).

In the words of the Hearing Officer: ‘The substance clearly amounts to a scheme for providing vehicle cargo packing slip information and vehicle cargo safety information on a transportation vehicle and allowing remote access of the vehicle cargo packing slip information to only authorised users and remote access to vehicle cargo safety information to other users.  The substance does not result in any technical benefit and amounts to little more than the convenient placement of particular information for remote access to particular persons in a particular environment.’

 

(Numbering issues and indentation issues still to be fixed below)