Patent decision

BL number

O/037/00

Concerning rights in

WO95/32431 & EP0763206

Hearing Officer

Mr G M Bridges

Decision date

3 February 2000

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

St Bartholomews and The Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Nicholas Wald and Lynne George v Oxford Brookes University, University of Edinburgh, Nigel Groome and Euan Wallace

Provisions discussed

PA 1977 sections 12 and 13

Keywords

Entitlement, Inventorship, Stay of proceedings

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The claimants launched an entitlement and inventorship action under sections 12 and 13 on an international application, and on the corresponding EP application arising from the entry of the international application into the regional phase. The claimants later launched opposition proceedings at the EPO against the EP application and asked for a stay of the current proceedings pending the outcome of the opposition proceedings. The defendants were not prepared to agree to a stay, and argued that the claimants had failed to make out a prima facie case. Having reviewed the submissions thus far, the Hearing Officer declined to rule that the claimants had failed to make out a prima facie case, and decline to stay the proceedings - not least because the matter before him was one of entitlement and therefore had no real overlap with the opposition proceedings before the EPO.

Full decision O/037/00 21Kb