NIPC Law

  Jane Lambert Patents Court (HH Judge Hacon)  Safestand Ltd v Weston Homes PLC and others [2023] EWHC 3250 (Pat) (19 Dec 2023) This was a claim by Safestand Limited ("Safestand") against Weston Homes Plc, Weston (Logistics) Limited. and Weston Group Limited ("the Weston companies" or "Weston") for patent and registered design infringement. There was also a counterclaim by Weston for revocation of the patents for obviousness and invalidation of the registered designs for want of unity and/or clarity and/or lack of novelty and/or individual character.  The action and counterclaim came before His Honour Judge Hacon sitting as a judge of the High Court between 8 and 19 June 2023.  He delivered judgment on 19 Dec 2023 (see Safestand Ltd v Weston Homes PLC and others [2023] EWHC 3250.  By para [254] of his judgment, he held that the patents were valid and infringed but the registered designs were invalid. The Patents Safestand's patents were  UK Patent No...

Author Basher  Eyre Licence CC BY-SA 2.0   Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Patents Court (Campbell Forsyth)  Safestand Ltd v Weston Homes Plc and others [2023] EWHC 1098 (Pat) (10  May 2023) A fundamental principle of civil litigation in England and Wales is that each party discloses to the other(s) any and all documents in his or her possession, custody or control that relate(s) to an issue in the proceedings.  An important exception is that documents that are prepared for the purpose of litigation do not have to be disclosed because they are protected by legal professional privilege.  The concept of "legal professional privilege" is explained conveniently by this  anonymous article dated 30 Aug 2022 on the Law Society website. Legal Professional Privilege and Experiments In patent proceedings, parties often carry out experiments to prove or disprove facts that may be in issue.  Those experiments are covered by legal professional ...