Patent decision

BL number
O/438/10
Concerning rights in
PCT/GB2008/000706
Hearing Officer
Mr A C Howard
Decision date
22 December 2010
Person(s) or Company(s) involved
Amir Azam and Carl Livesey
Provisions discussed
Patents Act 1977 Section 12
Keywords
Decline to deal, Extensions of time
Related Decisions
None

Summary

Just before the parties were due to be heard in a dispute over ownership of an application under the Patent Co-operation Treaty, the issue was raised of the validity of an assignment which appeared to cover all rights to the inventive matter contained in the application. As this was a point of central importance to the matter in dispute, and it concerned pure contract law, the Hearing Officer decided that overall the question would more properly be determined by the court and declined to deal with it. A request to allow three months for starting a claim in the court (as opposed to the normal two weeks specified under the Civil Procedure Rules) was refused on the grounds that there were no special circumstances in this case to justify departing from the normal procedure.

Full decision O/438/10 PDF document51Kb