Navigating data/Microsoft, European Patent Office (EPO Board of Appeal), 17 March 2011

The Board of Appeal had to decide whether the showing of results of a database analysis as a tree diagram could contribute to the technical character of the invention. The Board of Appeal pointed out that in this case one should take a wider view of the term "presentation of information" than just the actual information that is displayed (the cognitive content) by also including structural aspects of how the information is displayed. Therefore, structural aspects, such as the presentation in the form of a tree diagram, may be regarded as part of the presentation of information and cannot contribute to the technical character of the invention.

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