The claimant owned a patent on certain features of a cooking hob, and complained that the defendants had imported infringing designs. The defendant challenged the patent for obviousness.
Held: Both of the inventive features relied upon to support the patent were obvious in the light of the prior art. The argument that a combination would lack an inventive step only if it was obvious to combine the two obvious features was rejected since this would ‘turn the law of collocation on its head.’ It was difficult to reconcile the collocation rule with the procedure adopted in the Windsurfing case.
Laddie discussed the idea of joint tortfeasors: ‘The underlying concept for joint tortfeasance must be that the joint tortfeasor has been so involved in the commission of the tort as to make himself liable for the tort. Unless he has made the infringing act his own, he has not himself committed the tort. That notion seems to us what underlies all the decisions to which we were referred. If there is a common design or concerted action or otherwise a combination to secure the doing of the infringing acts, then each of the combiners has made the act his own and will be liable. Like the judge, we do not think that what was done by Meneghetti was sufficient. It was merely acting as a supplier of goods to a purchaser which was free to do what it wanted with the goods. Meneghetti did not thereby make MFI’s infringing acts its own.’
Judges:
The Hon Mr Justice Laddie
Citations:
[2002] EWCA Civ 976, [2003] RPC 264
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Appealed to – SABAF SpA v MFI Furniture Centres Ltd and Another CA 11-Jul-2002
The appellant challenged dismissal of its claim for patent infringement. The judge had held that the design was obvious, involving essentially only the collocation of two known features.
Held: Collocation was no more than a species of . .
Cited – British Celanese Ltd v Courtaulds Ltd HL 1835
The House described the law governing the bring together of two elements to form a patentable invention: ‘a mere placing side by side of old integers so that each performs its own proper function independently of any of the others is not a . .
Cited – Windsurfing International Inc v Tabur Marine (Great Britain) Limited CA 1985
Testing Validity of a Patent
A patent was challenged where the windsurf board had been shown as a primitive prototype to have been built and used in public by a twelve year old boy. The court set out the four steps required to be taken when ascertaining the validity of a . .
Cited by:
Appeal from – SABAF SpA v MFI Furniture Centres Ltd and Another CA 11-Jul-2002
The appellant challenged dismissal of its claim for patent infringement. The judge had held that the design was obvious, involving essentially only the collocation of two known features.
Held: Collocation was no more than a species of . .
Cited – Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Another v Newzbin Ltd ChD 29-Mar-2010
The defendant operated a web-site providing a search facility of the Usenet news system which allowed its users to locate copies of films online for downloading. The claimant said this was an infringement of its copyrights.
Held: The defendant . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Intellectual Property, Torts – Other
Updated: 04 June 2022; Ref: scu.159889
