Sycurio Limited v PCI-Pal PLC & Anor

In patent validity and infringement proceedings, the skilled team must reflect the technical problem addressed by the patent and may include more than one field of expertise. Claims are construed purposively from the specification, without importing limitations from particular embodiments. A claim is obvious where the differences from the prior art would have been obvious to the properly identified skilled team, assessed without hindsight. A process does not infringe merely because it achieves a broadly similar commercial result if its technical operation differs materially from the claimed invention. The doctrine of equivalents does not extend protection to a process which achieves a substantially different result or works in a substantially different way.

Sycurio, proprietor of Patent GB 2473376 concerning secure processing of telephone calls, alleged that PCI-Pal’s cloud-based Agent Assist systems infringed claim 9, literally and under the doctrine of equivalents. PCI-Pal challenged claim 9’s validity on grounds including obviousness, insufficiency, excluded subject matter and added matter. PCI-Pal also sought declarations concerning proposed system enhancements.

The principal issues were the identity of the skilled team, construction of claim 9, the inventive concept, obviousness over Van Volkenburgh, Shaffer and LiveOps, and infringement under sections 60(1)(b) and 60(2) of the Patents Act 1977.

1. Skilled team and construction. The Patent addressed a technical telephony solution to agent fraud in call centres. The skilled team therefore included both telephony and payment-systems expertise. Claim 9 required a call processor with first and second telephone interfaces. Voice signals had to pass through the call processor throughout the call, while transaction information signals could be selectively blocked. The claim was not confined to payment information, direct transmission to an external entity, or a particular telephony technology.
2. Inventive concept. The inventive concept was the processing of a telephone call so that voice signals continued to the agent throughout the call, while data signals containing sensitive transaction information were selectively blocked from transmission to the agent and the transaction data were sent to an external entity for further processing.
3. Validity. Applying the Pozzoli approach, claim 9 was obvious over Van Volkenburgh and, separately, Shaffer. Van Volkenburgh disclosed a live conversation continuing while sensitive information was entered, and switching such functionality on and off involved no inventive step. Shaffer disclosed selective blocking of DTMF signalling to an endpoint while other communication remained available. Claim 9 was not obvious over LiveOps, which disclosed transfer to an IVR while the agent monitored progress. Claim 9 was therefore invalid for lack of inventive step.
4. Infringement. The Agent Assist variants did not infringe on a normal construction. In normal mode, voice data bypassed CAP, so the required call-processor interfaces were absent. In active RTP scenarios, voice was interrupted when DTMF tones were entered. The SIP-only scenario also fell outside the claim. The Request Features were otherwise performed.
5. Equivalents and indirect infringement. Agent Assist did not achieve substantially the same result or operate in substantially the same way as claim 9. Section 60(2) did not apply because the invention was not put into effect. In any event, the RTP scenarios were subject to a Gillette/Formstein defence based on Proctor. The proposed enhancements likewise did not infringe.