T 0309/05 (Domain name generation/RAREDOMAINS.COM) vom 27.10.2006

Inventive step - (no)
Formulation of technical problem

1. Where a combination of non-technical and technical features is claimed, the consideration of inventive step requires that the problem be restricted to its technical aspects (point 4.2, following T 0641/00).
2. The problem of automating the generation of Internet domain names, so that only names which are both available and desirable are presented to a potential buyer, must therefore be stripped of aesthetic and semantic considerations, since these lie in a field excluded from patentability by the provisions of Articles 52(2)(b) and 52(2)(c) EPC (Points 4.7 and 4.9). Reformulating the problem into non-technical and technical components leaves as a technical problem simply the concatenation of a text string provided by a user with a predetermined string (Points 4.11 and 4.12).
3. The subject-matter and activities specified in Article 52(2) EPC can be considered to be "non-technical", as that term has been used by the boards (Point 4.10).