The Patentability of Computer-Implemented Simulations and Implications for Computer-Implemented Inventions (CIIs)

G 1/19 (Simulations), Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office, 10 March 2021 The Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) held that a computer-implemented simulation of a technical system or process which is claimed as such can, for the purpose of assessing inventive step, solve a technical problem by producing a technical effect going beyond the simulation’s implementation on a computer; and that the established case law on computer-implemented inventions (COMVIK approach) applies to computer-implemented simulations even if these do not have an output having a direct link with physical reality.