Aristocrat Technologies Australia Pty Ltd v Commissioner of Patents

On the published extract, the Full Court allowed Aristocrat’s appeal. It adopted the approach reflected in the High Court’s allowing reasons rather than the earlier Full Court’s alternative approach. The Court held that claim 1 was a manner of manufacture, and that the residual claims were also a manner of manufacture by analogy with claim 1. It then set aside the delegate’s revocation decision and directed the Commissioner to issue, publish and register certificates of examination for the affected claims.

For business readers, the practical point is that patentability for computer-implemented inventions in Australia remains highly dependent on characterisation. The Court’s stated approach asks whether the subject matter is merely an abstract idea manipulated on a computer, or an abstract idea implemented on a computer to produce an artificial state of affairs and useful result.

The 967 patent is the one described in most detail in the extract. Its specification said the field of the invention related to a gaming system and a method of gaming. The background explained that feature games may be triggered in addition to a base game, giving players an additional opportunity to win prizes or larger prizes and offering altered gameplay to enhance player enjoyment.

The specification then described embodiments in which symbols are selected from a set including configurable symbols and non-configurable symbols, and a feature game is triggered when a specified number of configurable symbols are selected for display.

The specification also described the general construction of the gaming system. At a broad level, the core components were a player interface and a game controller. The player interface typically included a credit mechanism, one or more displays, a gameplay mechanism and speakers. The game controller was in data communication with the player interface and typically included a processor and memory storing game rules as program code.

The specification also referred to hardware meters, a random number generator module, input and output interfaces, and possible networked or client-server architectures.

Claim 1 of the 967 patent was framed as a gaming machine comprising a display, a credit input mechanism, meters, a random number generator, a gameplay mechanism with buttons, and a game controller with processor and memory storing game program code and symbol data. The claim then described what the game controller did when the game was played.

It selected symbols from a first set of reels, displayed them during a base game, monitored play and triggered a feature game of free games when a trigger event occurred, retained configurable symbols, replaced non-configurable symbols using symbols selected from a second set of reels, and when the free games ended made an award based on the total prize values assigned to collected configurable symbols.

The primary judge had earlier summarised the embodiment as involving the machine holding configurable symbols that triggered the feature game, awarding a predefined number of feature game rounds, selecting and displaying symbols for positions not occupied by configurable symbols, holding any additional configurable symbols selected during the feature game, adjusting the number of rounds remaining depending on whether additional configurable symbols appeared, checking whether a predefined number of configurable symbols had been reached to trigger a jackpot, and paying the accumulated value of prizes indicated by the collected configurable symbols.

Aristocrat then obtained special leave to appeal to the High Court. Six justices heard the matter and, in August 2022, they were equally divided. Chief Justice Kiefel, Gageler and Keane JJ would have dismissed the appeal. Gordon, Edelman and Steward JJ would have allowed it. Because the Court was equally divided, s 23(2)(a) of the Judiciary Act applied. That provision says that where a decision of the Federal Court is called in question and the High Court is equally divided, the decision appealed from is affirmed.

That outcome is easy to misunderstand. The earlier Full Court result stood, but the High Court did not produce majority reasons. So there was no majority High Court ratio binding lower courts in the ordinary way. That is why the 2025 Full Court had to grapple with precedent and remittal, not just patentability.

On remittal, Burley J in 2024 dismissed Aristocrat’s appeal from the delegate’s decision, applying the reasons in the earlier Full Court majority decision. Aristocrat then sought leave to appeal again, which O’Bryan J granted in August 2024.

Aristocrat also applied to have the whole cause removed into the High Court, but in February 2025 all seven justices refused that application, saying the appeal did not raise an issue of wide and significant public importance requiring urgent resolution and did not justify interrupting the Full Court appellate process.

That left the 2025 Full Court to decide the appeal from the 2024 remittal decision. The Court therefore had to answer three practical questions: whether the primary judge had been bound to follow the earlier Full Court reasoning on remittal, whether the new Full Court was itself bound to follow that earlier reasoning, and what approach should now be taken to the manner of manufacture issue.

Third, on the patentability issue, the Court adopted the approach of the High Court’s allowing reasons rather than the previous Full Court’s proposed alternative approach. The Court said that manner of manufacture depends on characterisation, and that characterisation is determined in light of the specification as a whole.

For a computer-implemented invention, the appropriate approach was stated as asking whether the subject matter is: first, an abstract idea manipulated on a computer; or second, an abstract idea implemented on a computer to produce an artificial state of affairs and useful result.

Applying that approach, the Court held that claim 1 was a manner of manufacture. It then held that the residual claims were also a manner of manufacture by analogy with claim 1. The orders show the practical consequence of that conclusion.

The Court allowed the appeal, set aside the primary judge’s 2024 orders, set aside the delegate’s 2018 revocation decision for the listed claims, directed the Commissioner to issue, publish and register certificates of examination for those claims, certified that validity had been questioned in the proceeding, and ordered the Commissioner to pay Aristocrat’s costs of the appeal and of the proceedings before the primary judge.

For founders, product teams and in-house counsel, the case is a reminder that patent strategy starts well before filing. The specification should not just state the commercial concept. It should explain the architecture, the interaction of components, the operation of the claimed system, and the result produced by the claimed combination. Claim language should also be tested against the likely criticism that the invention is only an abstract idea implemented using standard computing.

The case is also a reminder that patent disputes can be long and expensive. Aristocrat’s path ran from a 2018 revocation decision to a 2025 Full Court win, with multiple appeals in between. Businesses should therefore think commercially about whether a patent application is the right tool, whether the likely claim scope justifies the cost, and whether other forms of protection such as confidentiality, copyright, trade marks and contractual ownership controls should be used alongside or instead of patents.

There is also a practical lesson in the Court’s treatment of precedent. The earlier High Court split created uncertainty, but the 2025 Full Court made clear that an equal split does not itself create binding majority reasoning. For businesses, that means legal uncertainty in developing areas of patent law can persist even after a High Court appearance.

Filing and enforcement decisions should therefore be based on current appellate authority, careful drafting and specialist advice, not on assumptions that one earlier result settled everything.

Finally, this case is especially relevant for businesses with older patent applications or portfolios drafted during periods of uncertainty in Australian law on computer-implemented inventions. Those portfolios may benefit from review to assess whether the claims and specifications present the invention as a concrete machine or system result rather than a bare abstract scheme.

The extract also explains that, on remitter, the parties agreed that the residual issues for the 967 patent concerned whether claim 5 of that patent, as dependent on claims 1, 3 and 4, was a manner of manufacture. The Court’s catchwords then state that claim 1 was held to be a manner of manufacture and that the residual claims were also a manner of manufacture by analogy with claim 1.

Because the extract is incomplete, readers should be careful about drawing more detailed conclusions about every claim variation without checking the full reasons. But the orders themselves are clear about which revoked claims were restored by the appeal.