Patent decision

BL number

O/183/16

Concerning rights in

GB2459372C

Hearing Officer

Mr S Probert

Decision date

12 April 2016

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

TWI Limited v Zircotec IP Limited

Provisions discussed

Section 72, Section 75, Rule 75

Keywords

Amendment, Cross examination, Inventive step, Novelty, Revocation, Sufficiency

Related Decisions

O/378/15

Summary

An application for revocation of a UK patent. The patent concerns a method of thermally spraying a ceramic coating onto an article having an organic substrate, eg. carbon fibre composite. The independent claims are limited to a ceramic coating with a porosity greater than 5%.

The hearing officer found that the independent claims lacked novelty over an earlier published patent document which disclosed a similar method but with a porosity between 4 and 6%.

The hearing officer also decided that an attack based on insufficiency would have failed.

Nevertheless, there was a dependent claim in the granted patent (claim 21), based on a porosity greater than 15%,that was novel and inventive. Using section 72(4), the patentee was allowed a short period of time to amend the specification of the patent to avoid revocation; but in order to minimise the risk and expense of prolonged re-litigation, the hearing officer indicated in detail the only form of amendment that would satisfy the Comptroller. The patentee was invited to take it or leave it.

Full decision O/183/16 178Kb