NIPC Law

In  HTC Europe Co Ltd v Apple Inc [2013] EWCA Civ 451 (3 May 2013), the Court of Appeal (Lord Justices Richards, Lewison and Kitchin) ventured again into what Lord Justice Lewison described at paragraph [140] of the Court's judgment as "the minefield of the exclusion from patentability of computer programs 'as such'". The Appeal This was an appeal from the judgment of Mr Justice Floyd (as he then was) in  HTC Europe Co Ltd v Apple Inc [2012] EWHC 1789 (Pat) (4 July 2012). The judge found that two of the claims of one of Apple's patents were invalid because they related to computer programs as such and one of those claims was also invalid for obviousness. He also found that all the claims of another patent were invalid either for want of novelty or obviousness.  The first of those patents, European patent number 2,098.948 , related to computer devices with touch sensitive screens that are capable of responding to more than one touch at a time. The second, E...

In  Medimmune Ltd v Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd and Another [2011] EWHC 1669 (Pat) (05 July 2011), Mr. Justice Arnold dismissed a claim for infringement of    European Patents (UK) numbers. 0,774,511 and 2,055,777 by selling a product called ranibizumab which is used for the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration of the eye on the grounds that the patents were invalid for obviousness and that even if the claims relied upon were valid the process used by the defendants to make the product did not infringe.   In  Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd v Medimmune Ltd and Another [2012] EWHC 181 (Pat) (10 Feb 2012) the same judge declared that a supplementary protection certificate granted in respect of European patent number 2,055,777 was invalid not only in the light of his earlier finding but because the certificate was was granted in respect of a product that had not been identified in the wording of the relevant claim as a product deriving ...

It is some years since I last discussed software patents ( "Software Patents: January Patents Ltd.'s Application" , 16 Jan 2009, "Software Patents: New Guidance from the IPO" , 29 Dec 2008 and "Patents: Software Protection after Symbian and Bilski " 11 Nov 2008) and Judge Birss QC's decision in Re Halliburton Energy Services Inc [2011] EWHC 2508 (Pat) (5 Oct 2011) and Mr. Justice Floyd's in Re Protecting Kids the World Over (PKTWO) Ltd [2011] EWHC 2720 (Pat) (26 Oct 2011) justify a return to the topic. The Statutory Exclusion Most people in intellectual property and many in information technology know that a rt 52 (2) of the European Patent Convention and s.1 (2) of the Patents Act 1977 exclude from patentability: (a) discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods; (b) aesthetic creations; (c) schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business, and programs for computers; ...