Patent decision

BL number
O/282/10
Concerning rights in
EP1080178, EP0942781 and GB2333250
Hearing Officer
Mr J Elbro
Decision date
9 August 2010
Person(s) or Company(s) involved
N Nazareth and Secretary of State for Defence
Provisions discussed
Patents Act 1977 Section 72
Keywords
Inventive step, Revocation, Sufficiency, Summary judgement
Related Decisions
None

Summary

The claimant sought revocation of the three patents on the basis that they lacked inventive step and that they were insufficient for the skilled worker to put the inventions in to practice. The defendant requested summary judgment in their favour under Rule 83(3), arguing that the claim had no real prospect of success. The Hearing Officer considered that the arguments regarding inventive step were misdirected as they did not relate to the contributions made by the inventions as claimed in the patents. He also found that the arguments regarding insufficiency, even if proved, would not show that the inventions claimed did not work at all but were directed to whether the inventions would work as well as they should or could be reproduced on commercial scale. The Hearing Officer found that the case had no real prospect of success and awarded summary judgment in favour of the defendant. He awarded costs on the usual scale to the defendant.

Full decision O/282/10 PDF document136Kb