High Court: Patents Court judgments, 2013

Patent claims must be construed objectively by reference to the characteristics of the claimed product. The assessment must remain realistic and fair; an…

Numerical limits in patent claims must be construed in the context of the particular specification and the common general knowledge. Where a claimed value is a…

In intellectual property infringement cases, the court must assess a proposed injunction by reference to efficacy, proportionality and dissuasiveness, while…

Patent claims are construed in their context without adding limitations that the words do not contain. “Generating” a parameter set may nevertheless require…

An alleged abuse of process cannot ordinarily be established on a contingency which may or may not arise after determination of other proceedings. Abuse is…

Under CPR rule 19.2, the court has a wide discretion to retain a party where that party may be affected by the determination, even if its legal interest in the…

In patent litigation, a party ordered to provide further information must identify the relevant claim integers and explain where they are said to be found in…

A reasonable notice period in an informal commercial arrangement must be assessed objectively and by reference to all the circumstances existing when notice is…

A patent claim must be construed according to its language and the understanding of the skilled person in context. A circuit capable of operating as a…

An application for recusal on grounds of apparent bias is determined objectively. The question is whether the fair-minded and informed observer, having…

On an appeal from a trade mark opposition decision, the court must review the decision for a material error of principle or a conclusion that is clearly wrong.…

When deciding whether to extend a cross-undertaking in damages to third parties, the court must exercise its discretion to do justice generally. It should…

Summary judgment is inappropriate where infringement depends on disputed expert evidence and the court would need to assess the expert’s credibility without…

On an application for an interim patent injunction, the court must first identify an arguable case and then apply the American Cyanamid principles. Where…

On summary assessment of costs, the court may allow rates above guideline hourly rates where specialist solicitors who conducted the underlying patent…

The court’s inherent jurisdiction cannot be used to grant third parties access to copies of trial exhibits or documents put to witnesses where the Civil…

An appeal from a Comptroller’s decision on computer-program exclusion is a review, not a rehearing. The appellate court should show real reluctance to…

For Community designs, the overall impression must be assessed by the informed user, having regard to the design corpus and the designer’s degree of freedom. A…

A patent claim must be construed purposively in the context of the specification, while respecting deliberate limitations expressed in the claim. Priority is a…

Quia timet relief depends on whether, viewed in all the relevant circumstances, there was a sufficiently strong probability that an injunction would be…

A patent claim for a product for use in preventing or treating a disease requires the product to be suitable for achieving the claimed therapeutic effect.…

Where software is developed collaboratively as the foundation of a commercial venture, the parties’ agreement may implicitly require copyright ownership to…

In standards-essential patent litigation, the court may determine a royalty on the assumption that the patents are valid and infringed, or assess the outcome…

Experimental evidence in patent proceedings must be served in accordance with the case-management regime. The court retains a discretion to admit experiments…

After a full trial has determined the parties’ rights, an application for an interim injunction pending appeal is governed by the court’s discretion and the…

Patent claims are construed purposively and in the context of the specification, but deliberate claim limitations must retain meaning. For obviousness, the…

Where parties undertake to determine FRAND terms for a specified patent form, the inquiry depends on that form remaining a legally effective and commercially…

Post-trial disclosure remains subject to the overriding requirement of necessity, together with proportionality and the overriding objective. The later timing…

A patent claim is construed according to the skilled person’s understanding of its language and purpose. Priority requires the claimed subject matter to be…

In patent litigation, costs are approached in stages. The court should first identify the overall winner, then decide whether the winner lost a sufficiently…

Privity of interest requires a sufficient degree of identification between the non-party and the earlier litigant to make it just to bind the non-party by the…

For supplementary protection certificates, the concept of a “product” in Article 1(b) of the SPC Regulation is to be interpreted strictly. An adjuvant which…

For priority, the claimed subject matter must be disclosed in the priority application as a whole so that the skilled person can derive it directly and…

Agreed bundles do not automatically dispense with fair notice when a party seeks to rely on hearsay evidence, particularly to prove a central and…

An expedited trial requires real and justifiable urgency. The court must assess the evidence realistically, including the market’s likely development and the…

Priority is assessed by asking what invention the priority document discloses directly and unambiguously. Where the document presents code allocation and I/Q…

Patent claims are construed by asking what the skilled person would understand the claim language to mean in the context of the specification. The description…

Where an interested third party intervenes to protect the confidentiality of documents disclosed in litigation, the court may apply the analogy of third-party…

The construction of a judicial order is a single coherent process. The court considers the order’s language in the circumstances in which it was made…

In assessing obviousness, the court must identify the skilled person, the common general knowledge, the inventive concept and the differences from the prior…

In FRAND and patent litigation, a confidentiality ring must reconcile natural justice with protection of confidential commercial information. Full access is…