9.2.10 Assessment of features relating to a presentation of information
The jurisprudence of the boards of appeal provides little support for the idea that screen representations inherently address technical problems (T 1143/06, T 95/86). A feature which relates to the manner in which cognitive content is conveyed to the user on a screen normally does not contribute to a technical solution to a technical problem. An exception would be if the manner of presentation can be shown to have a credible technical effect (T 1143/06, T 1575/07, T 1741/08 and T 1562/11). Features aimed exclusively at improvements regarding the way information is perceived or processed by the human mind are regarded as non-technical (see e.g. T 1567/05, T 125/04, T 579/11).
In T 543/14 the board held that providing a visual indication of technical conditions of a machine is a technical feature, according to the case law of the boards of appeal (see T 528/07, T 781/10 and T 887/12).
In T 1567/05 the board stated that the indication of "strength levels" in the form of predetermined display colours – which is a classification – has no technical effect. Although they refer here to technical phenomena, the stress values are mere pieces of information aimed exclusively at the human mind. As was noted in decision T 154/04 (point 8 of the Reasons), this list covers subject-matters whose common feature is a substantial lack of technical character. That this is true for presentations of information was observed in decision T 119/88 (OJ 1990, 395), which states in point 4.2 of the Reasons that the classification of objects by colour represents a non-technical effect.
In T 726/07 the feature in question was the use of a colour to represent a state of the cache. The board stated that even assuming that this could be considered as representing "conditions prevailing in an apparatus" in the sense of T 115/85 (OJ 1990, 30), the board considered that the use of a colour was a common and obvious implementation of a status indication.
In T 1734/11 the board stated that a reduction of user interaction does not necessarily convey technical character to the means for achieving the reduction (following T 1741/08). Inputting information to a machine and reducing the burden of doing so, while these may be technical tasks a priori (at least in the sense that they are not listed in Art. 52(2) EPC), not everything that supports a technical task has itself a technical character. However, in contrast to the presentation of the state of a technical machine, which may have technical character (T 115/85, OJ 1990, 30), the board considered that the presentation of pricing information, for example by colour coding, is a non-technical aspect even if it helps the user to conduct a price-sensitive travel query more efficiently.