High Court: Patents Court judgments, 2008

In construing a patent claim, the court asks what the skilled person would understand the patentee to mean from the claim language read in context. A claim to…

At the patent application stage, the Comptroller should decide factual objections on the balance of the evidence. However, where substantial doubt remains on a…

A patent is invalid for obviousness where the claimed combination would have been a technically obvious choice for the skilled person at the priority date. The…

Patent claims must be construed objectively through the eyes of the skilled person, using the claims, description and drawings together. Construction is…

In patent litigation, costs should ordinarily be determined by an issue-based approach where the proceedings involve numerous distinct issues and substantial…

For novelty, a prior disclosure of a racemate does not disclose its individual enantiomers where carrying out the disclosure produces only the racemate and…

A generic chemical formula covering many compounds will not normally anticipate a later claim to an individual compound where arriving at that compound…

Patent claims must be construed according to what the skilled person would understand the patentee to mean in context. A “mid-sole” may include the membrane…

The meaning of a formal commercial agreement is determined objectively, by asking what it would convey to a reasonable person with the relevant background…

An injunction enforcing an undertaking must reflect the undertaking’s proper construction. It should be neither wider nor narrower than the obligation…

Industrial applicability requires more than identifying and reproducing a biological sequence. The patent must disclose, directly or through the common general…

For the purposes of Article 3(a), a product is protected by a basic patent if it falls within the scope of a patent claim, interpreted under the applicable…

Services are registrable under the Trade Marks Act 1994 if they are of a kind normally provided for remuneration. Separate invoicing, or payment directly by…

An injunction restraining the commencement of future proceedings is an exceptional protection against abuse of the court’s process. It should be exercised…

Restoration of a lapsed patent requires the Comptroller to be satisfied that the failure to pay the renewal fee was unintentional. A bare assertion of…

For novelty, a prior disclosure anticipates where carrying it out would necessarily result in infringement. The necessary result is assessed on the balance of…

A court may enforce an unconditional undertaking given by counsel to limit patent claims, even where the undertaking was not recorded in the order. The…

Patent claims must be construed purposively, by asking what the skilled person would understand the claim language to mean in the context of the description…

A previous construction of a patent claim binds a later court only as to the precise legal point decided. Where that conclusion materially depended on evidence…

A patent claim is not rendered inventive merely because it implements a commercial choice using conventional computer-controlled hardware. In assessing…

Costs in patent proceedings should generally be approached by applying the discretion under Civil Procedure Rules 1998, rule 44.3, to all the circumstances. An…

Unregistered design right protects the physical appearance of an article, or an aspect of its shape or configuration, rather than an abstract idea or general…

Patent claims must be construed purposively, but the language chosen by the patentee remains important. A feature cannot be generalised beyond the technical…

In patent litigation, an issue-based costs order is ordinarily appropriate. A successful party may be deprived of the costs of issues on which it lost and, in…

For computer-implemented inventions, the contribution must be assessed in substance. A conventional computer programmed to store, manipulate and retrieve data…

When a patent claim combines technical features with excluded business features, the Patent Office may search the prior art by stripping out the merely…

Computer-program claims are not excluded merely because the invention is implemented in software. The court must assess the substance of the contribution and…

A consent order may be varied only where there has been a material or significant change of circumstances, or where the judge was misled about the relevant…

Patent claims must be construed objectively through the eyes of the skilled person, using the common general knowledge but not confidential material revealing…

A patent claim must be construed as the skilled person would understand it, read in the context of the specification. “Synchronisation” may include simple…

A jurisdiction clause is governed by the autonomous law of the Judgments Regulation, rather than the national law governing the contract’s substantive…

Patentability of computer-related inventions requires the four-stage approach: construe the claim, identify the actual contribution, ask whether it consists…

Patent disclosure is assessed through the eyes of the skilled person, reading the specification as a whole and using common general knowledge. A feature is not…

Documents held by companies within a corporate group may be within a litigating party’s control where the evidence establishes an existing and continuing…