The Federal Court of Australia has handed down its eagerly
anticipated first instance decision in respect of Research
Affiliates LLC v Commissioner of Patents [2013] FCA 71. This
decision was hoped to bring clarity to a relatively controversial
area of law, being the patentability of computer implemented
methods. However, for applicants and patentees in this space, the
decision tends to pose as many questions as it answers, and
certainly creates additional hurdles that need to be satisfied.
The claims upon which the decision focuses relate to a computer
implemented method for generating an index (for example an index of
shares upon which an investment strategy may be devised or
benchmarked). In general terms, the method involved gathering data
relating to a plurality of assets, and processing that data in a
particular manner to generate an index. The Australian Patent
Office had rejected the application as failing to satisfy the
requirement of being a "manner of
