High Court: Patents Court judgments, 2024

For an ingredient to qualify as an “active ingredient” under the supplementary protection certificate regime, it must have a pharmacological, immunological or…

A court considering a final, rather than revisitable, interim-stage declaration must have a high degree of assurance that the declaration is correct in fact…

The court has a broad discretion when making costs orders. Although the unsuccessful party usually pays the successful party’s costs, the court must consider…

Permission to appeal may be refused where the proposed grounds do not disclose a realistic prospect of success. The court may assess the grounds together where…

A party is not bound by every formulation advanced at an earlier patent trial. The doctrine of approbate and reprobate requires a clear and unequivocal…

For jurisdictional purposes, a serious issue to be tried must carry some degree of conviction. The claim must be coherently pleaded and properly…

Inventive step is assessed by asking the statutory question of obviousness in the light of all relevant circumstances. The court must avoid treating reasonable…

A patent claim must be construed by reference to its actual language and purpose. Technical features disclosed in the specification cannot be read into a claim…

For a patent claim directed to a very broad class of biological constructs, the specification must disclose the asserted technical effect and provide a…

Obviousness remains the statutory question whether the claimed invention was obvious having regard to the state of the art. Structured approaches such as…

For obviousness and sufficiency in biotechnology cases, the skilled team must be identified realistically. Where the technology concerns protein structure, the…

Permission to appeal should be refused where the proposed ground has no reasonable prospect of success or raises an argument that could and should have been…

The court may make issue-based costs orders by assessing whether each issue was reasonably and proportionately pursued, while recognising that a point may…

At a pre-trial review, the court may permit a party to answer a late-raised issue where refusing permission would cause injustice, particularly where the issue…

Confidentiality restrictions in intellectual property proceedings must balance the receiving party’s need for access against the disclosing party’s interest in…

In proceedings under section 40(1) of the Patents Act 1977, an invention is not identified by a mechanical, claim-by-claim construction of the granted patent.…

The court may order a preliminary issue where it will finally determine an important issue, materially reduce the scope, cost or duration of the proceedings…

Patent claims are construed purposively, but limitations cannot be read into them merely because the specification’s examples use a narrower arrangement. A…

A trial listing should rarely be revisited. A listing officer may take account of the availability of clients and client representatives, even though the…

For anticipation of a medical-use claim, the prior art must give clear and unmistakable directions and demonstrate the claimed therapeutic effect. A treatment…

Permission to amend a statement of case is discretionary. A proposed amendment must have a real prospect of success and must be coherent and properly…

Applications for expedition of a FRAND trial are determined by balancing the need for early resolution against fair trial preparation, the administration of…

At the interlocutory stage, a case survives only if it has a real, rather than fanciful, prospect of success, supported by a coherent pleading and evidence. An…

On withdrawal of an amendment application after a contested hearing, the successful respondents will ordinarily recover their costs in full under CPR r.44.2. A…

A FRAND undertaking under clause 6.1 of the ETSI IPR Policy does not itself impose an immediate obligation to grant an interim licence. It requires a SEP…

For added matter and novelty, the decisive question is whether the claimed subject matter is directly and unambiguously disclosed. A document is not a…

For the purposes of Patents Act 1977, consent to acts that would otherwise infringe a patent may be given informally and need not be contractual. A patentee’s…

In assessing obviousness, the court must consider the notional skilled team, its common general knowledge and the teaching of each item of prior art without…

The sequencing of technical and FRAND trials is ordinarily a matter of case-management discretion, not a legal rule requiring validity, essentiality and…

In patent proceedings, permission to rely on experiments should be granted where the experiments are relevant and proportionate. Experiments may provide useful…

Where a validity challenge to an EU registered design was finally determined by the EUIPO in proceedings connected with pending UK infringement proceedings…

Where the applicable patent-law test is unclear or developing, pleadings need not define the legal standard with absolute precision. They must identify the…

An application to expedite a patent trial requires an objectively ascertainable degree of urgency before the other factors are considered. Once that threshold…

An expedited patent trial requires real, objectively viewed urgency. Commercial certainty may justify expedition where a genuine and material risk remains…

For service out of the jurisdiction and amendment applications, a claim must have a real, rather than fanciful, prospect of success. The pleading is assessed…

For obviousness, the skilled person is identified by the established field in which the patent’s problem arises. In nucleic-acid detection, that field may…

For inventive step, the question is whether the skilled team would have pursued the claimed clinical trial with a reasonable expectation of success. In a…

Retrospective permission to use documents disclosed in earlier proceedings is exceptional. The applicant bears the burden of showing special circumstances and…

On an application for an interim injunction, the court applies the American Cyanamid principles by assessing the adequacy of damages and, where necessary, the…

Expedition of a patent trial requires real, objectively viewed urgency. The court must then assess the good reason for expedition, its effect on the…

A scientific adviser educates the court on technical subject matter but does not resolve technical disputes or provide opinions on issues in contention. Expert…

A patent claim must be construed purposively, but general claim language should not be restricted by importing limitations from a particular embodiment. A…