This is an informal case summary prepared for the purposes of facilitating exchange during the 2026 WIPO IP Judges Forum.
Session 4: Software and Digital Technology Patents
Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office [2021]: Case No. G 0001/19 – Pedestrian Simulation
Date of judgment: March 10, 2021
Issuing authority: Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office
Level of the issuing authority: Final Instance
Type of procedure: Judicial (Administrative)
Subject matter: Patents (Inventions)
Plaintiff/Appellant: Bentley Systems (UK) Limited
Defendant/Respondent: -
Keywords: Admissibility of referral - (yes); Transitional provisions of the EPC 2000; Patentability of computer-implemented simulations
Basic facts: This case concerns considerations and answers of the Enlarged Board to the questions referred to it by Technical Board of Appeal 3.5.07 in case T 0489/14 (Fußgängersimulation/CONNOR). Case T 0489/14 concerned the appeal against the refusal of European Patent Application No. 03793825, entitled “Simulation of the movement of an autonomous entity through an environment”. The application claimed a computer-implemented method of modelling pedestrian crowd movement in an environment comprising only steps which were carried out entirely numerically, i.e. entirely within a computer system without any interaction with ‘physical reality’.
Held: In G 1/19 the Enlarged Board answered three questions of law referred to it as follows:
"1. A computer-implemented simulation of a technical system or process that is claimed as such can, for the purpose of assessing inventive step, solve a technical problem by producing a technical effect going beyond the simulations implementation on a computer.
2. For that assessment it is not a sufficient condition that the simulation is based, in whole or in part, on technical principles underlying the simulated system or process.
3. The answers to the first and second questions are no different if the computer-implemented simulation is claimed as part of a design process, in particular for verifying a design."
Relevant holdings in relation to software and digital technology patents: When considering the existing case law on simulations, the Enlarged Board did not see a need to require a direct link with (external) physical reality in every case. However, it held that there were rather strict limits for the consideration of potential or merely calculated technical effects according to the COMVIK approach (T 641/00). The often-quoted criterion of T 1227/05 that the simulation constituted an adequately defined technical purpose for a numerical simulation method if it was functionally limited to that purpose should not be taken as a generally applicable criterion of the COMVIK approach for computer-implemented simulations. In the Enlarged Board's opinion, the COMVIK approach was suitable for the assessment of computer-implemented simulations. Like any other computer-implemented inventions, numerical simulations may be patentable if an inventive step can be based on features contributing to the technical character of the claimed simulation method. In the opinion of the Enlarged Board, when the COMVIK approach is applied to simulations, the underlying models form boundaries, which may be technical or non-technical. In terms of the simulation itself, these boundaries were not technical. However, they may contribute to technicality if, for example, they were a reason for adapting the computer or its functioning, or if they formed the basis for a further technical use of the outcomes of the simulation (e.g. a use having an impact on physical reality). In order to avoid patent protection being granted to non-patentable subject-matter, such further use had to be at least implicitly specified in the claim. The same applied to any adaptations of the computer or its functioning. The same considerations applied to simulations claimed as part of a design process. A design process was normally a cognitive exercise. However, the Enlarged Board found that it certainly could not be ruled out that in future cases there may be steps within a design process involving simulations which contribute to the technical character of the invention.
On question one, the Enlarged Board concluded that no group of computer-implemented inventions could be a priori excluded from patent protection. For this reason alone, question one had to be answered in the affirmative. Furthermore, the COMVIK approach required an assessment of the technical contribution of the individual features of computer-implemented inventions. Like any other computer-implemented method, a simulation without an output having a direct link with physical reality could still solve a technical problem. On question two, the Enlarged Board concluded that it had been established in the COMVIK approach that, depending on the technical context, features that were non-technical per se could still contribute to the technical character of a claimed invention, just as features that were technical per se would not necessarily contribute to it. In a similar way, the simulation of non-technical processes could contribute to the technical character of an invention. On the other hand, it could be that the simulation of a technical system did not contribute to it. If the fact that a simulated system or process was based on non-technical principles necessarily meant that the simulation could not have technical character, this would mean a particular group of numerical simulations being discriminated against without any legal basis for such discrimination. In view of this, the Enlarged Board was of the opinion that it was neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition that a numerical simulation was based, at least in part, on technical principles that underlay the simulated system or process. On question three, the Enlarged Board did not see any need for the application of special rules if a simulation was claimed as part of a design process.
In its recent decision [2026] UKSC 3 Emotional Perception AI Limited v Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom endorsed a substantial part of the findings of G 1/19.
Relevant legislation: Articles 22, 52(1), 52(2), 52(3), 56, 112 & 112(1)(a) of European Patent Convention