Patent decision

BL number

O/532/15

Concerning rights in

GB2343415

Hearing Officer

Mr B Micklewright

Decision date

16 November 2015

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Richard Gardiner

Provisions discussed

Patents Act 1977 Sections 27, 76(3)

Keywords

Added subject matter, Amendment

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The case concerned an application for post-grant amendment to GB 2343415 in the light of prior art document US5719602 which had come to the patentee’s attention. The patent in suit related to an inkjet printer which senses the movement of the substrate to be printed as it moves relative to a print head. The proposed amendment included the limitation of a “sensing means in physical communication with the in use substrate”. The specification as filed disclosed a single embodiment which comprised a digital encoder and friction wheel arrangement. The hearing officer found that the limitation of the sensing means being in “physical communication” with the substrate was not disclosed, either explicitly or implicitly, in the specification as originally filed and amounted to an intermediate generalisation. He therefore concluded that the proposed amendment included additional matter not in the specification as originally filed, contrary to section 76(3), and was not therefore allowable.

Full decision O/532/15 183Kb