The Court of Appeal has held that the skilled person (which can be a team of individuals) may vary depending on the question in issue (e.g. obviousness, novelty, sufficiency or construction). The patents in suit taught the use of marine Controlled Source Electromagnetic (“CSEM”) surveying to locate oil or gas. For the purposes of sufficiency (a post-patent issue), an exploration geophysicist and a CSEM expert would form the skilled team implementing the invention. In contrast, for the purposes of obviousness (a pre-patent issue), the skilled team would not comprise both types of expert, since the geophysicist would have had no apparent use for CSEM technology. In holding the two patents in issue to be valid, the Court of Appeal overturned the High Court’s first instance finding that the skilled team is always the same as well as its subsequent decision that the two patents in issue were obvious.

A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.

See also http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2010/8…


_____________________________

To make sure you do not miss out on regular updates from the Kluwer Patent Blog, please subscribe here.


Kluwer IP Law

The 2022 Future Ready Lawyer survey showed that 79% of lawyers think that the importance of legal technology will increase for next year. With Kluwer IP Law you can navigate the increasingly global practice of IP law with specialized, local and cross-border information and tools from every preferred location. Are you, as an IP professional, ready for the future?

Learn how Kluwer IP Law can support you.

Kluwer IP Law
This page as PDF