Citibank has failed to convince the High Court in England that it deserves a patent for a system that assures the integrity of data used to gauge financial risk. The application was rejected as being a mathematical method.

The system helps derivatives traders in their analysis of market conditions so they can calculate the risks associated with portfolios. Citibank's application described an invention that would automatically detect abnormalities in data being input for analysis and alert users to the probabilities of errors.

However, the system was still considered to be a mathematical method and therefore excluded from patentability.

Citibank's patent agent had argued in 2003 that the system was not a mathematical method since a system which analyses data and provides a confidence factor concerning a probable error rate was providing a technically significant outcome. The agent had pointed out to the patent examiner at that time that such a system could act in a similar way in respect of data representing medical information from a patient to provide a diagnosis.

See: Last year's Patent Office opinion (7 page/44KB PDF) 

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