9.2.13 Human Perception

In T 619/12 the board held that the perceptual processes taking place in the mind of a test person presented with odours in an odour selection test did not constitute mental acts within the meaning of Art. 52(2)(c) EPC. Nonetheless, human perception phenomena could not be qualified as being of a technical nature.

In T 339/13 the application was concerned with a virtual pet that was capable of giving "haptic feedback". Noting that the owner of a toy had to be willing to accept the toy's behaviour as real, the board accepted that achieving a reliable and reproducible perception of a physical interaction was a technical problem and found that the invention solved this problem by technical means, namely a reciprocating cursor movement and haptic feedback.