Patent decision

BL number

O/417/20

Concerning rights in

GB2562978B

Hearing Officer

Mr H Jones

Decision date

3 September 2020

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Alcolizer Pty Ltd and Dragerwerk AG & Co KGaA

Provisions discussed

Section 74B

Keywords

Opinions and Reviews

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The patentee requested a review of Opinion 17/19 on the grounds that the examiner had erred in principle in relation to his determination of the state of the art, in particular whether any evidence had been provided of an actual sale of a alcohol breath testing device before the priority date of the patent as opposed to the mere offering for sale. The patentee also claimed that the examiner had erred in principle by mosaicing documents in a way that was not permissible, in relying on new arguments/evidence submitted after the initial request and in misconstruing the claims. The Hearing Office found that the examiner had made no error of principle and had not reached a conclusion that was clearly wrong. Based on the nature of the evidence, he suggested that this would not be a case where it could be said that the patent was clearly invalid without properly testing the evidence. The Opinion was not set aside.

Full decision O/417/20 230Kb