Changes to the search and examination of UK patent applications: PPN 02/26

Following the UK Supreme Court’s judgment in Emotional Perception AI Limited v Comptroller General of Patents [2026] UKSC 3, the Intellectual Property Office (‘UK IPO’) has published Patent Practice Notice 02/26, setting out how examiners will search and examine UK patent applications going forward.

Background

The Supreme Court handed down its judgment on 11 February 2026. The judgment brought about an immediate change to the way in which section 1 of the Patents Act 1977 is interpreted and applied, with direct consequences for how UK patent applications, and particularly those for computer-implemented inventions, are searched and examined under sections 17 and 18 of the Act.

The key change is that the Aerotel approach no longer applies. Examiners will instead follow the Duns principles (A to F), as endorsed by the Enlarged Board of Appeal in G 1/19 and approved by the Supreme Court.

This brings UK practice into closer alignment with the EPO’s approach for computer-implemented inventions.

What changes in practice?

UK IPO examiners will now apply a three-step approach when examining applications where section 1 issues arise:

• Step 1 – Does the claim involve any technical means? If yes, it passes the first hurdle and qualifies as an ‘invention’ under section 1(1). This is a low bar. A reference to a computer, storage medium, network or other hardware is sufficient. Examiners will only raise a section 1(2) objection where a claim involves no technical means at all.
• Step 2 – Which features contribute to technical character? Examiners will go through the claim feature by feature and identify which elements contribute to the technical character of the invention as a whole. A feature contributes if it plays a role in the technical solution of a technical problem.
• Step 3 – Novelty and inventive step. Novelty and inventive step are assessed in the usual way, including the Pozzoli approach for inventive step, but only features identified at step 2 as contributing to technical character can support inventive step.

What do attorneys and applicants need to do?

The UK IPO will use the practice set out in the PPN for all applications before the office. Where an objection was previously raised and responded to under the Aerotel approach and the application is still pending, examiners will reconsider patentability afresh in light of the Supreme Court’s judgment.

It would be helpful if attorneys and applicants could frame submissions and responses to examination reports in accordance with the three-step approach described above.

Computer-implemented inventions and artificial intelligence

It is important to note that this change does not make it automatically easier to patent AI inventions or computer-implemented inventions. Applications must still satisfy all other requirements of the Patents Act 1977 (including novelty, inventive step, and industrial applicability) and features that do not contribute to the technical character of an invention cannot support inventive step.

Speaking following the publication of PPN 02/26, the Intellectual Property Office’s Nigel Hanley, said:

‘What we want to provide through this notice is certainty for attorneys, for applicants, and for our examiners. The Supreme Court’s judgment is a significant development, and we have carefully considered the judgment in order to ensure we provide clear, practical guidance. Patent practice in this area will continue to evolve through hearing officer decisions and court judgments. We are committed to keeping practitioners informed at every step.’

A note on artificial neural networks

The judgment also addressed the treatment of artificial neural networks (‘ANNs’). The Supreme Court held that an ANN is a program for a computer rather than a physical machine. It is an abstract model that can be implemented in hardware of various forms but is not itself a type of hardware. The instructions of an ANN, including its weights, biases, topology and mathematical functions, constitute a set of instructions to a computer to process data in a particular way. This applies regardless of the specific hardware on which the ANN is implemented, and regardless of whether the ANN was created by a human programmer or generated through machine learning.

What happens next?

The Manual of Patent Practice will be updated in due course to reflect the contents of PPN 02/26. In the meantime, the PPN provides the definitive guidance for examiners and applicants. The UK IPO anticipates that practice will continue to develop iteratively as further Court and hearing officer decisions emerge, and further updates to both practice and the Manual will be made accordingly.

The full text of PPN 02/26 is available on GOV.UK, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/search-and-examination-of-uk-patent-applications-under-the-patents-act-1977-as-amended

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