Patent decision
- BL number
- O/273/16
- Concerning rights in
- GB 1300974.1
- Hearing Officer
- Dr J Houlihan
- Decision date
- 2 June 2016
- Person(s) or Company(s) involved
- Adam Geoffrey Huggett and Hugslock Systems Ltd
- Provisions discussed
- Sections 1(1)(a), 1(1)(b), 14(3), 14(5), 76(2)
- Keywords
- Added subject matter, Inventive step, Novelty, Plurality of invention, Sufficiency
- Related Decisions
- None
Summary
The application is entitled “Hugslock Systems Phase 2” and concerns manhole covers with electrical devices installed in them. The application comprised 10 claims. Claim 1 refers to a manhole cover (secure pit lid) housing various sensors for detecting chemical and biological agents and environmental conditions such as temperature, wind speed, weather conditions and pollution. The application and remaining claims goes on to set out a range of other things that a manhole cover may include: electronic counter measures and the ability to utilise a range of measures including transmission mapping of mobile data, downloading information from ANPR and airwave systems, a rugged LCD display, sensors to record power usage, the capability to generate Internet service provision, voice recording equipment, the ability to automate systems, software and sensing equipment to assist in the tracking of individuals and the ability to connect to fibre optic street cabinets for remote locking options for street cabinets. The hearing officer considered that none of claims 2-10 had unity of invention with claim 1 but in the interests of his duty to deal with the application efficiently he went onto consider each of those claims separately. He found that claims 1-9 either lacked novelty or lacked an inventive step. He also found that claim 10 and claim 2 were insufficient and that some amended claims contained added matter. The application was refused under section 18(3).
Full decision O/273/16 
131Kb
