On 19 July 2024, the Court of Appeal under Lord Justice Birss handed down its judgement on the case of Comptroller – General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks v Emotional Perception AI Limited [2024] EWCA Civ 825. The Court of Appeal judgement overturns the first instance decision of the High Court and upholds the decision of the UKIPO Hearing Officer.The judgement held that:A computer is “a machine which processes information” (see reasons 61 and 68).A computer program is “a set of instructions for a computer to do something”, i.e. “to process information in a particular way” (see reasons 61).An artificial neural network (ANN), however it is implemented (in hardware or software), is a computer (see reasons 68).The weights and biases of an ANN, however it is implemented, are a computer program (see reasons 68 and 70)The sending of an improved recommendation is not a technical effect because its effect is subjective and cognitive in nature, not technical (see reasons 79 and 81). This is in line with the EPO’s approach.Emotional Perception’s invention is excluded for being a computer program as such (see reasons 83).The full Court of Appeal decision can be found here.In response to the issuance of the decision, the UKIPO has suspended its guidance on the examination of patent applications relating to artificial intelligence. It remains to be seen whether the UKIPO’s practice will now revert to that before the first instance decision was issued last November, whereby ANNs are treated no differently to any other form of computer implemented invention.