High Court: Patents Court judgments, 2022

Section 39 of the Patents Act 1977 vests an employee invention in the employer where the employee’s duties, considered in their contractual and factual…

Registration as proprietor of a patent is only prima facie evidence of ownership. Beneficial ownership may arise under a trust, while an assignment must…

Where a defendant pleads an unresolved existing licence which could defeat injunctive relief, the court should not grant an injunction before that issue is…

For inventive step, the inventive concept is determined from the invention as claimed. Technical advantages disclosed only in the specification cannot be…

A patent claiming a programmable low-pass filter in a polar transmitter is construed by reference to the claim language and the skilled team’s technical…

A court has jurisdiction to determine FRAND licence terms where a pleaded free-standing contractual claim asks it to do so. Determination need not await an…

Proceedings for a declaration of non-infringement under Patents Act 1977, section 71, remain subject to the ordinary abuse jurisdiction. They may be stayed or…

In a patent damages inquiry, the court must reconstruct the counterfactual on the evidence available and make the best broad assessment possible where…

Permission to amend shortly before trial is discretionary. The court must balance prejudice to the applicant, the opposing party and other court users, giving…

In patent case management, the court may refuse to add detailed allegations or disclosure requirements to a CMC order where the existing procedural rules and…

In patent infringement and validity proceedings, equivalence is assessed by identifying the inventive concept and applying the structured approach in [2017]…

Indemnity costs may be ordered where the conduct or circumstances of litigation take the case outside the ordinary and reasonable conduct of proceedings. The…

For obviousness, the court must assess the facts as a whole, giving appropriate weight to motivation, possible research routes, effort and expectation of…

Cases initially suitable for the Shorter Trials Scheme should be transferred out where the addition of patents, prior art, experiments, factual evidence or…

The court may manage confidentiality applications in stages where the material is commercially sensitive and the parties’ positions are developing. The prudent…

Evidence concerning a witness’s subjective intention is generally of limited relevance where the issue to be decided is how a device or product actually works.…

For inventive step, the court should identify the skilled person and common general knowledge, identify the inventive concept of the claim, compare it with the…

An anti-suit injunction sought quia timet requires a strong probability of threatened infringement and a risk of harm so grave and irreparable that immediate…

On a renewed application for an interim injunction, the court must assess the evidence at the date of the hearing and may take account of a material change in…

After judgment, a patentee should not ordinarily be permitted to advance amendments which introduce a new validating claim and require a further trial on…

Expedition requires real, objectively assessed urgency and a good reason, evaluated against the court’s resources and the interests of other court users. The…

In complex patent litigation involving multiple generic parties, the court should avoid joint and several costs liability where that could make one party pay…

A patent claim must be construed purposively in the context of the specification. A claim to an attachment magnet may encompass a plurality of magnets having a…

Obviousness is assessed against the claimed invention and the facts of the particular case. The existence of several possible research avenues may be relevant…

Applications for Arrow-type declaratory relief should proceed to trial where the pleaded facts and arguments disclose a realistic claim with at least arguable…

A pleading may encompass an allegation that is imperfectly expressed where its wording, read in context, reasonably conveys the substance of the case and the…

Patent claims must be construed purposively, by asking what the skilled person would understand the words to mean in the context of the specification. A claim…

An English court may determine a contractual dispute concerning a licence of foreign patents where the dispute is principally about contractual rights and…

A patent addressed to a skilled team is construed against the practical knowledge and experience of real research teams operating in the relevant field. Common…

On an application for an interim injunction, the court should apply the five-stage American Cyanamid approach, including the prudential preservation of the…

Patent claims are construed purposively in the context of the patent and the common general knowledge. Apparatus claims may require suitability for connection…

For a product claim requiring apparatus to be “adapted to” perform a function, the question is whether it is suitable to perform that function without…

In assessing patent plausibility, the court must consider the evidence as a whole and in its proper experimental context. A skilled person’s technical…

An anti-suit injunction requires caution because it interferes with the process or potential process of a foreign court. The applicant must establish a…

In an inquiry into compensation and damages, amendments will be refused where they seek to reopen liability already finally determined, have no realistic…

Issue estoppel did not prevent a party that had ultimately won earlier proceedings from challenging validity in later proceedings where the earlier judgment…

Patent claims are construed objectively and purposively, by asking what the skilled person would understand the claim language to mean in the context of the…