High Court: Patents Court judgments, 2015

In deciding patent litigation costs, the court must identify the overall winner by examining the substance and reality of the dispute. Different outcomes…

Permission to serve proceedings out of the jurisdiction requires a serious issue to be tried on the merits, a good arguable case for the relevant…

A post-trial application to rewrite patent claims may constitute an abuse of process where the amendment could and should have been sought before trial and…

Patent claims are construed according to the meaning which a skilled person would give them in context. General claim language is not narrowed merely because…

Patent claims must be construed purposively by asking what the skilled person would understand the patentee to mean in context. A claim requiring a fusible…

For a second medical use claim, therapeutic efficacy is a functional technical feature. The claimed treatment need not succeed in every patient, but the…

The court may give judgment on admissions where the admission is contained in written material, including pleadings and expert evidence, and is confirmed in…

In a patent action, obviousness is assessed by asking whether the claimed invention, viewed without hindsight, was obvious to the skilled but unimaginative…

On an application for an interim patent injunction, the court should adopt the course likely to cause the least irremediable prejudice. The assessment must…

For purpose-limited medical-use claims, plausibility is not a free-standing statutory requirement. It is relevant to whether the disclosure is enabling and, in…

Summary judgment on patent infringement may be appropriate where the court has the necessary evidence and the issue can fairly be decided summarily. However…

In an issues-based costs assessment, the court should identify the overall winner and decide whether a lost issue is sufficiently distinct to justify depriving…

A Swiss-form second medical use claim is a process claim directed to the manufacturer. The word “for” requires a mental link between manufacture and…

A transfer of standard-essential patents does not infringe Art 101 TFEU merely because the transferee gives a fresh FRAND undertaking rather than assuming the…

A patent for operating a pitch-controlled wind turbine was invalid for lack of inventive step. A skilled person applying a prior-art proposal for gradually…

A purpose-limited therapeutic claim is not anticipated merely because prior art discloses a proposed or ongoing clinical trial. The claimed therapeutic effect…

Where defendants have overall success in patent litigation, the starting point is that they receive their costs. The court may make deductions for issues on…

Novelty requires both disclosure and enablement. The prior art must disclose subject matter which would necessarily infringe the claim. A possibility or choice…

In case management, the court may select a fixed service date where that provides greater certainty than linking service to another procedural event. The date…

Pre-action disclosure may be ordered to assist settlement and save costs where the jurisdictional conditions in CPR rule 31.16 are satisfied. In patent…

A patent claim directed to rivastigmine administered transdermally at a specified starting dose contained added matter where the application presented the…

A patent claim must be construed purposively, but deliberate claim limitations remain legally significant. A “bit pattern” means a predetermined-length…

Applications for summary judgment or strike-out concerning FRAND licensing obligations for standard-essential patents should not be determined summarily where…

A product and process description must contain full particulars sufficient to enable the infringement issues to be resolved. It must be complete in all…

The court may grant an injunction under section 37(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 to require a third party to take proportionate protective measures where…

A Swiss form claim is a process claim. It cannot be treated as an EPC 2000 product claim, or as equivalent to one, for the purposes of indirect infringement.…

Where infringement depends on a developing and unsettled question of patent law, the court may refuse strike-out or summary judgment and require the facts to…

Before an order is drawn up and sealed, the court has jurisdiction to reopen a judgment and permit amended pleadings, fresh evidence and a further trial. The…

A Swiss-form second medical use claim requires subjective intention by the manufacturer that the medicament will be used for the specified therapeutic…