High Court: Patents Court judgments, 2014

A patent claim requiring a profile state transition matrix is concerned with how the system operates, not merely with whether it produces equivalent outputs.…

For registered design infringement, the decisive question is the overall impression on the informed user, assessed against the design corpus and the designer’s…

A patent claim must be supported by a plausible technical contribution across its scope. Where a claim covers a very broad class of compounds, it is…

For patent validity, a claim lacks novelty only where the prior art both discloses and enables the invention. The disclosure must contain clear and…

Post-grant patent amendments must be assessed by comparing the properly construed scope of the granted and proposed claims. The prohibition on extending…

In assessing obviousness, the court must consider the facts as a whole and ask whether the claimed differences would have been obvious to the skilled person…

For a Norwich Pharmacal order, the court must consider whether an arguable wrong has been committed, whether the respondent facilitated it, whether the…

In patent amendment proceedings, an obvious mistake may be corrected where the skilled person would immediately recognise both the error and the precise…

A patent for using a formoterol and budesonide combination inhaler for both asthma maintenance and relief was invalid for obviousness. The skilled person would…

When deciding whether to stay patent proceedings pending parallel European Patent Office proceedings, the court must assess the overall balance of competing…

Under CPR 31.22, documents referred to in a public trial ordinarily enter the public domain, but the court may preserve confidentiality where cogent, specific…

In managing a patent infringement dispute, the court must determine the practical consequences of non-compliance with pleading directions by reference to the…

There is no presumption that disclosure during a clinical trial is confidential. Whether disclosure gives rise to an equitable obligation of confidence depends…

For Article 3(a) of Regulation No 469/2009, whether an active ingredient is protected by a basic patent is determined by the rules governing the extent of the…

Section 63 of the Patents Act 1977 gives the court jurisdiction to grant relief on a patent that is partially valid without requiring deletion of every invalid…

In consequential patent proceedings, amendments must be stated with precision and may be permitted where the proposed form was sufficiently clear at trial.…

For an obviousness challenge, the court should identify the skilled person and common general knowledge, identify or construe the inventive concept, identify…

On an application to stay national patent proceedings pending opposition proceedings before the European Patent Office, the court must balance justice having…

Summary judgment may be granted in a patent case where the court can confidently construe the claim and resolve the issue on the material before it. The…

A patent claim requiring a fluid to be heated to a specified temperature range is concerned with the temperature of the fluid used in the process. It is not…

For a computer-implemented patent, functional apparatus language does not ordinarily extend to an unprogrammed general-purpose computer. A claimed virtual…

Whether a patent is of outstanding benefit under section 40(1) of the Patents Act 1977 is a qualitative, multi-factorial assessment. The tribunal must consider…

For obviousness, the court applies the structured Pozzoli approach through the eyes of the person skilled in the art. In pharmaceutical cases, an invention may…

Where a pending central amendment application may alter the form of a European patent before trial, the court may adjourn the trial to avoid deciding the…

Patent claims concerning interactive television systems were revoked for obviousness. A prior-art disclosure may support an obviousness case even where it…

Patent claims must be construed purposively in context, balancing fair protection with reasonable certainty for third parties. A specific chemical designation…

For a therapeutic-use claim, a proposed treatment may be novel even though the proposal itself is disclosed. However, the proposal may nevertheless render the…

A stay of an order revoking a European patent should not ordinarily be granted merely because the patentee has begun central amendment proceedings in the…

A patent product or process description must give full particulars sufficient to resolve every infringement issue. It must contain at least the specificity of…

A product claim must be construed with sufficient certainty for the skilled person to identify the claimed physical feature without elaborate experiments. A…

A patent claim must be construed purposively, in context, and by reference to the language used. An intentionally included limitation cannot be ignored. A “dry…

For anticipation, prior art must disclose subject-matter whose performance would necessarily infringe the patent. A possible or likely consequence is…

A tribunal may resolve a disputed issue by applying the burden of proof where, despite conscientiously assessing the evidence, it cannot reasonably make a…

Confidentiality orders in patent proceedings must reconcile the protection of commercially valuable secret information with the fundamental principle of open…

Compensation under a cross-undertaking in damages is assessed on a compensatory basis. Where an injunction prevents entry into a market, the court may value…

On an appeal from a specialist trade mark tribunal, the appellate court should interfere only for an error of law or principle, a clearly unsustainable…

The Comptroller’s discretion under section 75(1) of the Patents Act 1977 to permit post-decision amendment is not exercised automatically. It must be guided by…