High Court: Patents Court judgments, 2023

Permission to amend a pleaded case on the first day of trial is exceptional. The applicant must show a real prospect of success, provide a satisfactory…

Under Practice Direction 57, a document is “mentioned” only where the evidence contains a direct allusion or specific reference to the document. A reference to…

On summary assessment, recoverable costs must be reasonably incurred, reasonable in amount and proportionate to the matters in issue. Doubt about…

For the purposes of Civil Procedure Rules 1998, r 31.22(1)(a), a document is referred to at a public hearing without any additional requirement that its…

For a patent claim requiring a heater’s maximum temperature to be “exclusively determined” by a Curie point, there must be a fixed relationship between the…

Although the court generally seeks to try all issues together, it may order separate trials where issues are genuinely severable and case-specific practical…

A patent claim may define a broad class by structural and functional features where the specification gives a reasonable basis for expecting the invention to…

The slip rule corrects an accidental slip or omission so that an order reflects the court’s intention. It cannot be used to permit second or additional…

In assessing infringement of a registered design, the court must compare the overall impressions produced on the informed user, while excluding features whose…

In patent validity and infringement proceedings, the skilled team must reflect the technical problem addressed by the patent and may include more than one…

In deciding costs, the court must identify issues at an appropriate level of generality. A successful party is not deprived of costs merely because it failed…

An implementer found to infringe a standard-essential patent, and without a licence, will ordinarily be required to elect between accepting future FRAND terms…

Where a court grants a without-notice application under PD57AC permitting a party to rely on witness evidence prepared outside the prescribed requirements, the…

Patent claims are construed purposively, but deliberate words in a claim retain meaning. A numerical or physical limit may have a fuzzy boundary where a small…

An ETSI FRAND undertaking does not make an implementer immediately licensed merely because it elects to take terms set by a court of its choice. Clause 6.1…

Permission to appeal a costs decision requires a real, rather than fanciful, prospect of success or another compelling reason. Where the court has exercised…

A FRAND licence for standard-essential patents should reflect the objective value of the licensed technology and the actual economics of comparable…

Redactions to a judgment are exceptional. They require powerful reasons supported by cogent evidence directed to the specific information. Redactions must be…

In determining FRAND terms for a standard-essential patent licence, interest on past royalties may be awarded where a willing licensor and willing licensee…

For a claim under section 40 of the Patents Act 1977, the invention, rather than the patent, must belong to the employer. The employee need not be named as…

Patent claims are construed purposively by reference to their wording, the specification and the inventor’s purpose. A description expressly stating that an…

At the quantum stage of a split intellectual property trial, further allegations of infringement may ordinarily be raised where doing so is just and…

Where a party deploys litigation experiments, privilege in related experimental material is not waived automatically. The court must identify the issue or…

For added matter, an amendment is impermissible only where it presents the skilled person with new technical information not directly and unambiguously…

Costs are discretionary. Although the unsuccessful party will ordinarily pay the successful party’s costs, the court must consider all the circumstances…

For patent infringement, claims are construed purposively, followed by the three-stage equivalence inquiry where literal infringement is absent. An inventive…

Copyright in computer software may protect source code, object code and creative aspects of a program’s structure or design, but not functionality or ideas.…

For a Markush patent claim to be plausible, the specification and common general knowledge must provide a reasonable prospect that the asserted technical…

A FRAND determination should identify the terms which willing parties would agree, using objective evidence of market transactions. The court should focus on…

Costs budgets must be reasonable and proportionate, having regard to the factors in Civil Procedure Rules 1998, CPR Part 44.3(5) and 44.4(3), and PD3E…

A patent claim should be construed purposively and in context. Where prior art is expressly acknowledged, forms part of common general knowledge and is the…

In construing a patent claim, words such as “image property” must be read in their full technical and textual context. A broad expression is not confined to a…

Costs consequences should reflect the substance of the parties’ success. A losing issue does not justify a percentage deduction where it did not materially…

In a patent validity dispute, the court held that the patent was valid and that the admitted essentiality of the patent meant that claim 1 was infringed by…