Patent decision

BL number

O/138/17

Concerning rights in

EP 1295550 B1

Hearing Officer

Mr S Probert

Decision date

23 March 2017

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

John Horsfall & Sons (Greetland) Ltd V Robert J MacDonald

Provisions discussed

Sect 72

Keywords

Inventive step, Novelty, Revocation

Related Decisions

None

Summary

An application for revocation of a patent for an improvement to the design/manufacture of a fitted bed sheet. The invention is concerned with removing the ‘ears’ of surplus material that were formed in the prior art process.

The patent was alleged to be invalid for want of novelty and/or inventive step on the basis of an earlier patent publication and (in the case of inventive step) common general knowledge. Following a hearing, the hearing officer concluded that the patent was both novel and inventive over the prior art relied upon by the claimant.

Full decision O/138/17 350Kb