High Court: Patents Court judgments, 2017

Whether a patent licence is exclusive is determined under English law by construing the relevant licence documents against the statutory requirement that the…

Gateway (4A) of Practice Direction 6B permits service of a further claim against a defendant already subject to the court’s jurisdiction where it arises from…

Judgments should normally be published in full so that the public can understand and scrutinise the court’s reasons. Redactions require powerful reasons…

An ETSI undertaking to license standards-essential patents on FRAND terms is legally enforceable by implementers. For a given set of circumstances, there is…

Privilege in material relating to litigation experiments should be treated as waived only to the extent necessary to prevent unfairness or selective…

A patent claiming a principle of general application may extend to later inventive improvements or technological developments which use that principle, without…

An interim injunction pending an intended appeal requires a real prospect of success and an assessment of all relevant post-judgment circumstances. The court…

A priority claim must be held by the applicant when the later application claiming priority is filed. A later acquisition cannot retrospectively cure the…

Patent claims are construed through the eyes of the skilled person and in the context of the patent’s purpose: describing and claiming an invention. A claim is…

Jurisdiction under Article 5(3) of the Lugano Convention must be analysed claim by claim. Jurisdiction over a negative declaration concerning one territorial…

Where substantive litigation is compromised but costs remain unresolved, the court must do justice without incurring unnecessary further costs. It may…

UK unregistered design right protects the physical manifestation of a design, not an abstract idea, method or principle of construction. Infringement requires…

An interim injunction may be granted in a patent-entitlement dispute where there is a serious issue to be tried and the American Cyanamid considerations favour…

Personal liability for a company’s tort is not established merely because the alleged accessory is its sole director or shareholder. Joint tortfeasance…

In an enquiry on a cross-undertaking in damages, a claimant must plead the essential basis of its loss. That includes the relevant prices, profit margins…

Where a patent holder has established infringement and the court has settled a licence on FRAND terms, the appropriate final relief is ordinarily an injunction…

A contractual claim concerning royalties may require an English court to determine the scope of a foreign patent without becoming a direct challenge to its…

Registered design disputes should usually be determined by the overall impression produced by the registered design, the alleged infringement and the design…

For Article 3(a) of the SPC Regulation, a product may be protected by a basic patent even though it is not individually named or depicted in the claims. A…

A patent must disclose a workable prototype capable of performing the claimed invention without an undue burden. The work may involve substantial research and…

FRAND is an objective standard. For a given situation there is one set of FRAND terms, although negotiations may involve offers above or below the eventual…

Under the SPC Regulation, a second certificate is precluded where one active ingredient embodies the basic patent’s core inventive advance and has already…

In assessing patent validity, the skilled team and common general knowledge must be identified by reference to practical experience in the relevant field.…

Entitlement to claim priority must be assessed when the later application is filed. Substantive beneficial ownership and an enforceable right to compel…

Where an interim injunction has been granted on the basis of the balance of the risk of injustice, costs will ordinarily be reserved to the trial judge. The…

Priority requires the skilled person to derive the claimed subject matter directly and unambiguously from the priority document, using common general knowledge…

An account of profits for future patent infringements cannot ordinarily proceed where it has not been pleaded, particularly where the proposed relief would…

The concept of “product” in Article 1(b) of the Regulation 469/2009/EC concerning the supplementary protection certificate for medicinal products is…

For Article 3(a) of the SPC Regulation, it is insufficient that dealings in a product would infringe a basic patent under national infringement rules. The…