e) Data structures

Data structures which are used to store cognitive data are not considered to contribute to the technical character beyond the mere storage of data, but data structures used for functional purposes are considered to contribute to producing a technical effect (e.g., T 1194/97, OJ 2000, 525; T 424/03; T 697/17).

In T 49/99 the board ruled that information modelling was a non-technical intellectual activity, but that the purposive use of information modelling in the context of a solution to a technical problem could contribute to the technical character of an invention.

In T 858/02 the board held that an electronic message was not automatically excluded from patentability as a presentation of information. It depended on whether the message was defined by its structure or its content. A computer data structure was not under all circumstances excluded from patentability; the fact that in the present case the instructions defined a structure of the message did not automatically lead to the conclusion that a "format (i.e. data structure)" was unpatentable.

In T 1351/04 an index file used for the purpose of controlling the computer "along the path leading to the desired data" was considered to contribute to the solution of a technical problem. See also T 1902/10, T 2539/12, T 2330/13.

In T 1867/18 the board held that using a significance value to identify false positives in potential approximate matches was not by itself a technical use given the abstract nature of approximate string matching. Hence, even if this potential use were considered to be implied by claim 1 (which it was not), it would not be an implied technical use in the sense of G 1/19.

In T 1199/20 the invention concerned storing and retrieving biomedical information. The board held that the data structure was not technical. It described the organisation of biological data at an abstract logical level, which was in the realm of information modelling, which is an intellectual activity and cannot contribute to the technical character of the invention unless it serves a technical purpose (see above T 49/99), which the claimed data structure did not.