Patent decision

BL number

O/185/06

Concerning rights in

GB0327108.7

Hearing Officer

Mr R C Kennell

Decision date

7 July 2006

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Schlumberger Holdings Limited

Provisions discussed

PA 1977 Section 1(1)(b)

Keywords

Inventive step

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The application was directed to a method of operating a perforating gun in a subterranean well, in which the shaped charges in the gun extended only partially around the longitudinal axis of the gun and the gun was oriented to direct the charges away from a water barrier between the gun and the well casing. The hearing officer upheld the examiners objection that the invention was obvious in relation to two documents showing similar arrangements, but with no clear indication that water was present. In the light of three further documents found by the examiner after hearing, the hearing officer further held that the objection would not be met by the applicants proposal to restrict the claims to the use of a gravity-operated swiveling mechanism to orient the gun. Each of the further documents, although again not clearly indicating that water was present, showed the use of such a swiveling mechanism to orient the shaped charges downward. The hearing officer gave the applicant a period of two months to amend.

Full decision O/185/06 266Kb