Patent decision

BL number

O/259/10

Concerning rights in

EP02747592.0

Hearing Officer

Mr P Thorpe

Decision date

23 July 2010

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Paul, Kevin & Carol Raven v Robert Williamson

Provisions discussed

Section 10 and 12 of the Patents Act 1977

Keywords

Entitlement

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The claimants claimed that Robert Williamson was not entitled to be named as an applicant on EP02747592. Robert Williamson claimed he was entitled by virtue of an oral agreement entered into with the inventor, Kevin Raven. That agreement required Robert Williamson to provide support for the filing of the patent application from which the EP application claimed priority. The Hearing Officer accepted that there was an agreement that had transferred an equitable interest in the application to Robert Williamson and that this entitled him to be named as co-applicant. The Hearing Officer did however order that the EP application should procede with Mr Williamson as the last named applicant thereby making one of the other two applicants the common representative for the purpose of correspondence with the EPO.

Full decision O/259/10 87Kb