NIPC Law

  Jane Lambert Intellectual Property Enterprise Cour t (Mr Campbell Forsyth) WaterRower (UK) Ltd v Liking Ltd . [2024] EWHC 2806 (IPEC) At the case management conference in WaterRower (UK) Ltd v Liking Ltd (T/A Topiom) [2022] EWHC 2084 (IPEC) (5 Aug 2022), Liking Ltd ("Liking") applied unsuccessfully to strike out or obtain summary judgment in, a claim against it by WaterRower (UK) Ltd.  ("WaterRower") for infringement of copyright in several of its water resistance rowing machines ("the Works"). WaterRower had alleged that the Works were "works of artistic craftsmanship" within the meaning of s. 4 (1) (c) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 ("CDPA").  Mr David Stone, who heard the application, said: "I have found that the Claimant’s case that the WaterRower is a work of artistic craftsmanship is not 'bound to fail'. I have not reached a concluded view that the WaterRower is a work of artistic craftsmanship -...

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...