The patent application of the appellant (applicant) relates to a virtual pet. One can consider a virtual pet as a sort of game. Can this invention involve a technical effect? In this decision the Board of Appeal analyzed whether a feature of the main request and of the auxiliary request is technical. The feature relates to providing haptic feedback to the user. In the main request the haptic feedback is generated on basis of a simulated "biological state" or "health state" of the virtual pet. In the auxiliary request the haptic feedback was generated as a (direct) response to input provided by the user. The feature of the auxiliary request is a sort of simulation of the real behavior of a pet that is happy at the moment in time that the owner interacts with the pet. This case shows that in certain cases providing haptic feedback to the user of a virtual pet may be technical and that the technicality of the feature strongly depends on the parameters that determine the haptic feedback.
