The claimants sought a declaration of non-infringement of patents involving medial devices. The patent owner claimed infringement and the claimant also sought revocation of the patent for obviousness.
Held: The device did not infringe the patent. ‘i) The language of the patent is the starting point and is critical though not finally determinative.
ii) If there is a conventional meaning of a word or expression, either in the eyes of the skilled team, or in everyday language if the words have no special meaning to the team, then a conclusion that it has some unconventional meaning requires a rational basis.,br />iii) Even if a given limitation looks odd, in the sense that one cannot see why the patentee would have included it, there may nevertheless be an undisclosed reason for that oddity and one cannot assume that the oddity is unintended and betokens an unconventional meaning for words, or that the limitation should be disregarded.’ The court felt able to distinguish a conflicting decision in Germany. The patent claims were not however obvious and the patent stood.
Judges:
Mann J
Citations:
[2009] EWHC 2013 (Ch)
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – STEP v Emson Europe Ltd CA 1993
Hoffmann LJ said: ‘The well known principle that patent claims are given a purposive construction does not mean that an integer can be treated as struck out if it does not appear to make any difference to the inventive concept. It may have some . .
Cited – Improver Corporation v Remington Consumer Products Ltd ChD 1989
Protocol Tests For Onbviousness Set Out
The invention was based upon the discovery that an arcuate rod with slits, when rotated at high speed, would take the hair off the skin by means of the opening and closing of the slits. The claim was to a rod in the form of an ‘helical spring’ but . .
Cited – Pozzoli Spa v BDMO Sa and others PatC 21-Jun-2006
. .
Cited – Kirin-Amgen Inc and others v Hoechst Marion Roussel Limited and others etc HL 21-Oct-2004
The claims arose in connection with the validity and alleged infringement of a European Patent on erythropoietin (‘EPO’).
Held: ‘Construction is objective in the sense that it is concerned with what a reasonable person to whom the utterance . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Intellectual Property
Updated: 21 October 2022; Ref: scu.371883