Patent decision

BL number

O/318/17

Concerning rights in

GB 2478028 B

Hearing Officer

Mr S Probert

Decision date

13 July 2017

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Linpac Packaging Ltd v Ingenium IP Ltd

Provisions discussed

Sect 74B

Keywords

Opinions and Reviews

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The patentee requested a review of Opinion 23/16 on the grounds that the examiner had wrongly concluded that the patent was invalid.

The patent relates to a container suitable for use eg. in food packaging. The Hearing Officer found that the examiner had misconstrued the terms ‘substantially perpendicular’ and ‘vertical, in use, surfaces’ in the claim and reached a conclusion on inventive step that was clearly wrong. He also found that an essential feature of claim 1 (a polyethylene seal layer) was not clearly disclosed in the prior art, and consequently the conclusion on novelty was also clearly wrong. The Hearing Officer set aside the opinion in whole.

Full decision O/318/17 586Kb