SINEAD M MADDEN
18 Limerick Rd
Ennis V95 XND3
Ireland
sineadmadden@gmail.com
29 January 2024
Notice of Substantive Defects
Patent Application No: 2023/0255
Dear Sir/Madam,
With reference to the application numbered as above, the Controller hereby notifies
you that the application does not comply with the requirements indicated hereunder.
Novelty and Inventive Step
Under Section 9 of the Patents Act 1992, an invention in all fields of technology shall be
patentable under this Part if it is susceptible of industrial application, is new and involves
an inventive step.
Inventive step is given as “a non-obvious modification or a new technical effect”.
The current application appears to be a software app for matching academic supervisors
with students using already existing software principles. Under legislation the
combination of features already widely known cannot be seen as inventive.
While the application tells the reader what the app will do, there is little in the way of
enabling disclosure to allow a user to recreate the functionality. Page 3 of the
Description mentions that the system will allow comprehensive user profiles. The
content of these user profiles can only be seen as the presentation of information on an
already available database system.
While the advanced matching algorithm mentions a sophisticated matching algorithm
there is no detail on how this algorithm works. Insufficient detail about the algorithms
underpinning the invention renders the patent indefinite, meaning that the scope of the
claimed invention is too ambiguous.
The real time communication and calendar function is again widely known, as is the
privacy and security settings capability. The resource sharing and progress tracking
functionality is again under described to allow a reader to implement this.
As the inclusion of further material is not allowed under current legislation, I cannot see
any scope for the progression of this application in its current form.
What I could suggest is filing a new short term patent application (10 year) with further
information and expanded detail (screenshots, etc) which would undergo a less severe
examination as compared to a full term application (20 year patent).
An applicant can file a short term with 12 months of the filing date of the full term
2023/0255 and still keep the original filing date of 2023/0255. This would provide
assurance that no other attempts to file the same invention have been made in the
interim. This is called “claiming priority on a previous application” and can be performed
through the online filing system in step 7/11. A short term application costs €60 with no
search fee.
As a search cannot be carried out on the application in its current form, the search fee of
€200 will be refunded in full.

Should you wish to refute the findings here and proceed with the full term
application, we would ask for written justification as to why this application should
proceed. This should be presented to the Office within 1 month from the date of
this notice.

Should you wish to file a new short term application and are having difficulty,
please do contact the Office at ipinfo@ipoi.gov.ie
Under Section 31 of the Act, the Controller hereby requests you to attend to the
deficiency (or deficiencies) indicated within 1 months from the date of this notice.
If there are any queries in relation to the content of this letter, please do feel free to
contact me at the email address given below.
Yours faithfully
Karen Ryan
_____________
Dr. Karen Ryan
Patent Examination
patentexamination@ipoi.gov.ie