NIPC Law

By Volker Prasuhn, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8363375   Jane Lambert Patents Court (Mr Tom Mitcheson KC) Bionome Technology Ltd v Clearwater [2024] EWHC 3155 (Ch) (9 Dec 2024) This was an appeal from the decision of the Deputy Director of Patents, Huw Jones, sitting on behalf of the Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks in an entitlement dispute.   As I said in How to Avoid Entitlement Disputes   on 22 June 2024 in NIPC Inventors' Club, an entitlement dispute is a dispute over the right to apply for or own a patent.   I wrote about such disputes in Disputes over Ownership of Inventions   on 6 Aug 2015 in NIPC South East. The Dispute In  Okipa Ltd and another v Bionome Technology Ltd   BL   O/0410/24 3 May 2024, Mr Jones held that British patent  GB2598881  and international patent application  WO2021/191614 A1 for controlling the growth of vegetation ("the invention")...

Author Skip88   Licence Public Domain Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Patents Court (Nicholas Caddick KC)  Price and others v Flitcraft Ltd and others [2022] EWHC 3381 (Pat) (20 Dec 2022) This was an action for patent and copyright infringement and passing off.  The patents in suit were GB2415714C  and GB2436989B.  The first claimant, Philip Price ("Mr Price"), claimed to own the patents. He contended that he had assigned the patents to one Fred Bridge ("Mr Bridge") shortly before he was adjudged bankrupt and that Mr Bridge had reassigned them back to him upon his discharge from bankruptcy.   The second claimant, Supawall Ltd. ("Supawall") claimed to be Mr Price's exclusive licensee.  Mr Price and Supawall alleged that the first and second defendants, Flitcraft Ltd ("Flitcraft") and Flitcraft Timber Frame Ltd., had infringed the patents by marketing and supplying a product known as "Injectawall". The third and fourth ...

In Yeda Research and Development Company Ltd v. Rhone-Poulenc Rorer International Holdings Inc and Others   [2007] Bus LR 1796, [2007] BusLR 1796, [2008] 1 All ER 425, [2007] UKHL 43 Lord Hoffmann described s.7 (2) and (3) of the Patents Act 1977  as "an exhaustive code for determining who is entitled to the grant of a patent." For determining entitlement to the grant maybe because s.32 (3) of the Act provides that "Notwithstanding anything in subsection (2)(b) above, no notice of any trust, whether express, implied or constructive, shall be entered in the register and the comptroller shall not be affected by any such notice."  But not necessarily to ownership because s.30 (1) states that patents and patent applications are personal property and sub-section (3) adds that they may vest by operation of law in the same way as any other personal property. `Disputes over equitable interests in patents or patent applications are fairly rare but they can arose in cir...