On 23 April 2024, the Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in the appeal arising from the January 2023 decision of Meade J in AIM v Supponor [2023] EWHC 164 (Pat). AIM is the proprietor of EP (UK) 3 295 663, which relates to technology that allows TV broadcasters of live events to superimpose…
Introduction It is common for parties to English patent litigation to settle their differences after the first instance judgment on the merits from the Court. This is for several reasons including the thoroughness of the Patents Court Judges, the Court of Appeal’s approach to issues such as obviousness (where only an error of principle will…
A short but nevertheless interesting judgment was handed down last week on the different roles that technical experts on the one hand and scientific advisers on the other have to play in proceedings in the English Patents Court. The decision of Mellor J followed a case management conference in an entitlement dispute between Dr Vanessa…
It took longer to arrive than expected but here it is. The UK Courts have been given an opportunity to depart from the jurisprudence of the CJEU in their interpretation of the SPC Regulation. The opportunity has arisen in the following way. In December 2023 the English High Court dismissed an appeal by Merck against…
Question: I applied for my SPC in reliance on the law as set out in Neurim[1], following Santen[2] can I still obtain my SPC? Answer: No, according to the English High Court[3]. In 2018, i.e. before the Santen decision from the CJEU, Merck applied to the UK IPO for an SPC for its medicinal product…
On 19 December 2023, the Court of Appeal handed down its decision in The NOCO Company v Shenzhen Carku Technology Co., Ltd [2023] EWCA Civ 1502. The issue on appeal was whether communications between The NOCO Company (“NOCO”) and Amazon amounted to a “threat of infringement proceedings” for the purpose of s. 70 Patents Act…
On 20 December 2023, the UK Supreme Court handed down its highly anticipated judgment in the case of Thaler v Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks [2023] UKSC 49, unanimously ruling that only a natural person can be named as an inventor on a patent application. In doing so, the Supreme Court upheld the decisions…
The EPO has recently announced it will ‘accelerate its processing of parallel opposition proceedings if it is informed by the Unified Patent Court or a national court or competent authority of a contracting state that an infringement or revocation action relating to a European patent or a Unitary Patent has been instituted before it.’ It…
The facts of the case On 21 November 2023, Sir Anthony Mann of the London High Court handed down a judgment in the case of Emotional Perception AI Ltd v Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks [2023] EWHC 2948 (Ch). This judgment addressed the question whether artificial neural networks (ANNs) are excluded subject matter…
Many of us who have done a PhD, remember that time around the beginning of the second year when anxiety and insecurity start substituting the passion and enthusiasm. We all needed a safe space and a friendly encouraging forum to reassure us that having your own research project is a worthwhile endeavour. To help inspire…
