10/06/2025
When it comes to patenting Real Money Gaming (RMG) in Europe, applicants often find themselves rolling the dice. The European Patent Office (EPO) can take a strict approach to gaming patents, particularly regarding the requirement for inventions to provide a technical solution to a technical problem. This can present a challenge because Article 52 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) tells us that computer programs and rules for playing a game are not inventions, and therefore these aspects of claims are not considered technical by examiners.
However, while software and game rules alone cannot be patented, gambling-related inventions are not necessarily out of luck. Innovations that provide a clear technical contribution – such as improved security mechanisms, novel hardware interactions, or optimized random number generation – stand a much better chance of securing patent protection.
Cases dealing with hardware are generally straightforward. Take Novomatic’s EPO patent EP3424127B1 for an entertainment gaming device – essentially a slot machine with a smartphone wireless charging system integrated into the cash output tray. There is a clear technical effect from the hardware features. But what about inventions implemented primarily in software?
Below we explore how these sorts of gambling-related inventions fare at the EPO, both at the Board of Appeal level and in front-line examination, and look at strategies for stacking the odds in your favour when navigating the patenting process at the EPO.
Don’t get excited – rules for playing games are not patentable by themselves
In Board of Appeal decision T 1497/19 the invention in question was a touchscreen gambling game system designed to enhance player engagement by dynamically adjusting payout odds during each game round. The aim was to maintain player excitement.
The distinguishing features over the closest prior art were found to be the use of a touch screen and the random selection of a specific number of game results for which dynamic raised odds were respectively generated / selected.
These features were considered to be independent and without synergy, which under EPO practice means that the “partial problems” approach to inventive step is applied. Each feature can be considered separately when testing for inventive step. If both features are obvious individually, the claim as a whole is obvious.
The touch screen feature was dealt with swiftly by the Board. It was considered obvious to select a touch screen as an input mechanism at the priority date.
The dynamic odds feature was considered to be non-technical in nature. It provided a standard automation and implementation of a rule for playing the game aimed at making the game more exciting. The problem is that making a game more exciting is not a technical problem, as established in earlier EPO case law such as T 0042/10, where the applicant also tried to argue that its invention addressed the technical problem of keeping players interested in the game. In that case, the Board countered that improving amusement is not a technical problem, quipping that “[i]f it were, any dull computer game could be regarded as posing a technical problem that could be solved by any less dull game”.
This case, and similar, suggest it is not a good idea to rely on the subjective impact a game has on the player for a technical contribution. Features that contribute to this will likely be ignored when considering inventive step, or even worse will be included in the technical problem that the skilled person is tasked with solving. It’s a better strategy to keep these particular cards close to your chest and play down such features in the description and claims.
Secure implementations of games might be patentable
The invention considered in Board of Appeal decision T 0683/11 (WMS Gaming, Inc.) was a secure system for playing gambling games offline. The system allowed users to participate in games without being continuously connected to a central server. Key to the invention was a verification mechanism ensuring that credits and outcomes remained secure and tamper-proof even when offline.
The key feature was providing an interactive gambling application in which a user interactively provides a sequence of user selections in response to randomly generated gambling input. A log of the user selections is securely stored and used by a central gambling facility to verify the results of the application. By verifying the result of the gambling application at the central gambling facility, the gambling application can be stored insecurely, meaning that more expensive secure memory is not needed for storing the application, making it easier and inexpensive to distribute and update the gambling application.
The Board concluded that these differences did not relate to the rules of the game per se, but to the technical implementation of the rules of the game.
A similar conclusion was found in decision T 1937/07 (WMS Gaming, Inc.), which related to a method of authenticating data in a gaming machine while the gaming machine is operating, to make certain that the data remains unchanged. In particular according to the invention, graphic data (which is less security critical than executable code) is authenticated less frequently than the executable code. This solves the problem of making more time available for the authentication of the most critical part, i.e. the executable code.
Security and hardware aspects have always been safe harbours for finding technical effects and these cases show that this remains the case even when the invention is in the field of gambling devices.
And the implementation of random number generation might also be patentable
Another application from Novomatic – EP2951797 – was granted for random number generation. In particular, this application dealt with how centrally generated random numbers should be distributed to client gaming machines.
This application is notable on how to address EPO objections that claim features lack a technical effect. In particular, during examination, the EPO had identified various features that distinguished the claimed invention over the prior art, but believed some of these features did not have a technical effect. The features of note were: (i) The random number generator is a true random number generator; (ii) the random number requests from client devices are accumulated in a list that forms a batch of requests and the list is parsed at particular time intervals; (iii) various parameters are set based on the parsing.
The EPO did not believe that features (ii) and (iii) were technical in nature. The EPO’s position was that these features relate to parameters set by the operator of the gaming system according to the desired response time of the system and should be regarded as administrative requirements making part of a scheme for playing games.
The applicant pushed back, arguing that true random number generators are limited by technical criteria and operate best when random numbers are generated in bulk. By accumulating client requests for random numbers and then responding to these requests in bulk, the claimed invention was playing to the technical strengths of true random number generators. This was clearly considered technical because the EPO relented and granted the patent.
The display of information is not (normally) technical
Board of appeal decision T 1704/06 concerned a roulette payout calculation aid with a display that provided various data to players in a casino. The device includes player identification keys to represent individual players, data entry means for entering the monetary value of the chips of each player and a player’s display for displaying to the players the bets of a player identified by key. In particular, the display identifies, for each player, the bets laid down, their respective odds, the value of each winning bet and the total payout to be returned.
The Board’s view was that the invention did not deal with a technical issue but a matter of trust in the croupier (or the lack of it). The novel aspect of the invention was the information being presented, namely “the bets of a player identified by key including the chips wagered by the player on each winning bet, its respective odds, the value of each winning bet and the total payout to be returned to the player”. It is well established that presentations of information, absent any further technical effects, cannot contribute to an inventive step.
As an aside, in this case the applicant attempted to argue that an indication of inventive step came from the strong commercial success of the invention. This rarely works at the EPO and this case shows why. The EPO’s view is generally that the success of a product might not be due to its technical excellence – clever marketing or some other factor might be responsible.
It is, however, sometimes possible to tie a technical effect to the display of information in the context of gaming, particularly where the display takes into account the technical aspects of the game or display device. Case T 0928/03, popularly known as the “Konami” case, concerned the way in which footballer characters in games such as FIFA or ISS Pro are marked on screen to identify the player that has the ball, and the players to which the ball can be passed. The invention dealt with the conflicting requirements of being sufficiently zoomed in on the player with the ball for accurate control, but also displaying enough of the pitch to see what is happening elsewhere. The Board felt that resolving this conflict by technical means required a technical contribution sufficient to allow them to grant a patent.
A takeaway from this is that when drafting inventions relating to the display of game information one should focus on how that data is displayed and why this allows the game to be played/controlled better, rather than the precise information being displayed.
But handling winnings might be technical…
FDJ Gaming Solutions managed to obtain patent EP4213953 for a centralized method of managing game winnings in a computer system. The system includes various independent game modules and a separate module dedicated to managing winnings. The system collects information about winnings and eligibility for different types of games. This information comes from game modules linked to the specific games and is based on a ticket identifier. It estimates the total winnings associated with a ticket based on the gathered information.
In this case, a technical effect could be attributed to simplifying interactions between the various game modules. The system simplifies the process by centralizing the management of winnings for multiple games, reducing the need for direct interaction between different game modules.
Cases like this might be borderline on the patentability scale, but it highlights that describing games within their technical environment and treating them as elements within a network exchanging data with other elements can help to draw out technical distinctions over the prior art.
Be careful what you claim – the level of generality matters
Looking back to decision T 1937/07, there was also a discussion around whether the use of different authentication priorities truly solves a technical problem. These priorities could be defined at a managerial level depending on the legal restrictions and user needs, without considering any technical requirements.
It’s quite common to see cases like this start with very general claim wording, claiming a verification process at a high level without saying what is being verified. This leaves the door open to interpretations where the verification is based on non-technical aspects. Had the applicant, for example, simply made a reference to “different verification priorities” then there would not have been a technical effect because those priorities could be set for non-technical reasons.
In this particular case, it was only by specifically requiring in the independent claims that it is the graphic data which is authenticated less frequently than the executable code, which is directly related to the less critical nature of the graphic data, that a technical effect in the context of a gaming machine was found.
It’s therefore important to be prepared to limit your claims to the specific technical implementations. Prepare for this at the drafting stage by including functional language explaining what important features are doing and also including intermediate positions between the general claim wording and the specific examples in the description. This will ultimately mean that amendments made during examination at the EPO to limit to technical embodiments are much less restrictive on scope of protection.
Conclusion
Although the EPO can, at first sight, appear to be quite strict on examination of gambling inventions, there are reasons to stake a bet. The EPO is clearly willing to grant applications in this field provided that they can be convinced that a technical contribution has been made, and that contribution can come from many different sources.
Crucial is deciding on the technical aspects and the technical problem/technical solution at the drafting stage. This allows the drafter to frame the application within the bounds of the technical contribution and to provide details of the technical effects (e.g., security, efficiency, hardware optimization) and the features that achieve these effects.
It’s also normally best to avoid emphasizing game rules and instead to frame innovations as technical system improvements. The EPO will generally see game rules as non-technical, no matter how clever they are. Instead, focus on how the rules are technically implemented and any benefits this might have on the overall system.
Finally, applicants should set their expectations. Broad claim terms will often be construed so broadly by the EPO that it becomes questionable whether a technical effect is achieved by every embodiment covered by the claims. Often the broadest protection can be achieved at the EPO by relying on more functional definitions of features, specifically saying not only what a feature “is”, but also what it “does”.
By carefully addressing the technical aspects of the invention, you can significantly increase the likelihood of obtaining patent protection in the RMG field at the EPO.
This article is for general information only. Its content is not a statement of the law on any subject and does not constitute advice. Please contact Reddie & Grose LLP for advice before taking any action in reliance on it.
