NIPC Law

Supreme Court of the United Kingdom Author Kelsey Farish Licence CC BY 4,0   Source Wikimedia Commons   J ane Lambert Supreme Court (Lord Briggs, Lord Hamblen, Lord Leggatt, Lord Stephens, and Lord Kitchin) Emotional Perception AI Ltd. v Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks   [2026] UKSC 3 This was an appeal by Emotional Appeal AI Limited ("the applicant") against the Court of Appeal's decision in  Emotional Perception AI Ltd v Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks   [2024] Bus LR 14, [2023] WLR(D) 500, [2023] EWHC 2948 (Ch) (21 Nov 2023) to uphold the examiner's objection to the patentability of the applicant's invention. I discussed the Court of Appeal's reasoning in  Patents - the Appeal in Comptroller v Emotional Perceptions   on 26 Aug 2024. The Invention The applicant applied to the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office for a patent for a method of training a neural network to reflect emotional perc...

Author Dietary Rabich   Licence CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed   S ource Wikimedia Commons Jane Lambert Supreme Court  (Lords Hodge, Kitchin, Hamblen, Leggatt and Richards)   Thaler v Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks   [2023] UKSC 49 (20 Dec 2023) I mentioned the hearing of the appeal from the Court of Appeal's judgment in  Thaler v Comptroller General of Patents Trade Marks And Designs   [2021] RPC 19, [2022] Bus LR 375, [2021] EWCA Civ 1374 in DABUS in the Supreme Court   on 12 April 2023.  On 20 Dec 2023, the Supreme Court dismissed that appeal in  Thaler v Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Mark s [2023] UKSC 49.  The Court's judgment was delivered by Lord Kitchin. What This Appeal Was Not About In paras [48] and [49] of his judgment, Lord Kitchin said: "[48] The Comptroller has emphasised, correctly in my view, that this appeal is not concerned with the broader question whether technical advances gener...

  Jane Lambert Patents Court (Michael Tappin KC)  Nicoventures Trading Ltd v Philip Morris Products SA and another [2023] EWHC 854 (Pat) (18 April 2023) This was an action for revocation of European Patents (UK) 3 266 323 (“323”) and 3 741 225 ("225”) and a claim for infringement of 323.  The action and counterclaim came on for trial before Michael Tappin KC sitting as a judge of the High Court between 20 and 22 and 27 March 2023. At para [191 of his judgment in  Nicoventures Trading Ltd v Philip Morris Products SA and another [2023] EWHC 854 (Pat)  which he delivered on 18 April 2023, he dismissed both the claim and the counterclaim. The Invention The Patents were granted on divisional applications from WO 2011/063970 A1  entitled “An electrically heated smoking system with external heater” as described in the following abstract: "There is provided an electrically heated smoking system for receiving an aerosol-forming substrate. The system compris...

Author Amir.ahrls   Licence CCO 1.0   Source Wikimedia Commons Jane Lambert Patents Court (Mr Justice Roth) Novartis AF and another v Reva UK Ltd and others   [2022] WLR(D) 306, [2022] EWHC 959 (Ch) Can an applicant for a patent or other intellectual property right seek an interim injunction to restrain an act that would infringe such right in the interval between the removal of the last objection to the granting of the right and the date of grant?  The right to damages for infringing acts is backdated to the publication of the application by s.69 (1) of the Patents Act 1977 but s.69 (2) (a) entitles an applicant to bring proceedings by virtue of this section in respect of any act only after the patent has been granted.  S.9 (3) (a) of the Trade Marks Act 1949  provides that no infringement proceedings may be begun before the date on which the trade mark is in fact registered.  S.7A (6) of the Registered Designs Act 1949 makes clear that no proce...