NIPC Law

Author Rklawton   Licence   CC BY-SA 4.0   Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Yesterday the Intellectual Property Office added a new para  125.17.8  on the Formstein defence  to its Manual of Patent Practice .  Considering that the defence is a doctrine of German law and that there has been no firm decision on whether that doctrine applies to this country, that is quite remarkable. Para 125.17.8 describes the doctrine as: "a principle developed under German patent law in relation to infringement and the doctrine of equivalents (DoE), whereby if an alleged infringer can show that an equivalent is a non-inventive variant of the claimed invention, then the patent’s scope for the purposes of determining any infringement is held to its normal construction – in other words the DoE does not apply." I have referred to the doctrine in  Patents - Technetix BV and others v Teleste Ltd . on 19 Feb 2010 and  Patents - Facebook Ireland Ltd v Vox...

Jane Lambert Patents Court (HH Judge Melissa Clarke)  Excel-Eucan Ltd v Source Vagabond Systems Ltd [2019] EWHC 3175 (Pat) (21 Nov 2019) This action began as a claim for: a declaration that a patent licence agreement subsisted between the parties, royalties payable under that agreement or,  alternatively, damages for breach of the agreement.  The defendant counterclaimed for declarations that: the agreement had been terminated,  the agreement was unenforceable in the absence of a valid patent,  the claimant's patents had not been infringed by the manufacture and sale of items that the defendant claimed to have developed independently of the claimant. and, no royalties were payable in respect of the manufacture and sale of those items.  By the time the action and counterclaim came on for trial, the defendant had admitted that the licence agreement had not been terminated and was valid and binding and that the claimant held valid pa...

Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert Patents Court (Mr Justice Nugee)  E Mishan & Sons, Inc (t/a Emson) v Hozelock Ltd and others [2019] EWHC 991 (Pat) (17 April 2019)   This was a claim for the infringement of two patents:   UK patent GB 2 490 276  for an expandable hose assembly and European patent EP 2 687 575  also for an expandable hose assembly. There was a counterclaim for the revocation of those patents on grounds of obviousness and, for a while, anticipation. This action and counterclaim came on before Mr Justice Nugee. The Invention The invention for which those patents were granted was a new type of garden hose. Conventional ones are made of plastic in a number of layers bonded together. They tended to be heavy. bulky and difficult to store.  They also tended to kink.  The invention avoided those difficulties. The inventor, Michael Berardi , made a hose consisting of two tubes, one inside the other.  The i...

Jane Lambert Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (HH Judge Hacon)    Marflow Engineering Ltd v Cassellie Ltd [2019] EWHC 410 (IPEC) (26 Feb 2019) This was another decision by his Honour Judge Hacon on the construction of claims in accordance with art 2 of the Protocol on the Interpretation of art 69 of the European Patent Convention . It follows his  judgments in  Regen Lab SA v Estar Medical Ltd and others   [2019] EWHC 63 (Pat) and  Technetix BV and others v Teleste Ltd .    [2019] EWHC 126 (IPEC) which I discussed in Patents - Regen Lab SA v Estar Medical Ltd . 24 Jan 2019 and  Patents - Technetix BV and others v Teleste Ltd   19 Feb 2019. The Invention The patent in suit  was for a method of installing a fluid-using appliance such as a shower. The invention addressed problems arising when an appliance is connected to pipework extending from the wall against which the appliance is install...

Human blood after centrifugation Author  Zuzanna K. Filutowska Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported Source  Wikipedia Jane Lambert Patents Court (HH Judge Hacon)  Regen Lab SA v Estar Medical Ltd and others [2019] EWHC 63 (Pat) (18 Jan  2019) This was a claim by Regen Lab SA  ("Regen") against the Israeli company, Estar Technologies Ltd., and the British companies, Medira Ltd, and Lavender Medical Ltd. for patent infringement.  The defendants counterclaimed for revocation of the patent alleged to have been infringed on grounds of anticipation, obviousness and insufficiency. The Patent The patent alleged to have been infringed was for a method for the preparation of platelet-rich plasma  ("PRP") for unprocessed use and combination thereof with skin and bone cells. It was granted by the European Patent Ofice under publication number EP2073862 . Judge Hacon described the inv...

Jane Lambert On Wednesday I stressed the importance of pre-action correspondence and how the drafting of a letter before claim can make all the difference between getting what you want quickly and cheaply through focused negotiation and precipitating an expensive and possibly protracted law suit in  Pre-Action Correspondence - Not Just a Box to be ticked or a Hoop to be jumped through   2 Aug 2017. Today, I shall tell you what to do if you receive a letter accusing you of infringing a patent or some other intellectual property right. If you have carried out an IP audit you should have a strategy in place for just such a contingency and you will have an insurance funded legal team ready to advise and represent you.  If you have a case they should be able to see off the challenge with a well-reasoned and documented response. If, however, you are in the wrong they will advise you of that reality and suggest ways of extricating yourself from the dispute as ...