The judgement by the Court of England and Wales concerning a notice to be placed on Apple’s website concerning the non-infringement of their Community Design by certain Samsung tablets is now available at [2012] EWCA Civ 1430. 
 
It makes somewhat uncomfortable reading. 

Apple were required to place a notice “to clear the fog of confusion it had created” concerning its Community Design  0000181607-0001.  However, the notice they placed comprised matter directed by the court mixed up with matter added by Apple.  This pointed to infringement having been found in other jurisdictions of other intellectual property rights notably the USA.  The judge branded the amended notice as including inaccurate statements and “false innuendo”.  Importantly, the judge pointed out that “The UK decision is not in odds with the USA decision”.  The USA jury specifically rejected Apple’s claim of infringement of a US design patent that corresponded to the Community Design in issue in these proceedings.   The amended notice was alleged to have undermined the intended effect of “removing the fog”.

Apple were ordered to remove the offending amended notice and to replace it by the originally ordered notice.

Concerning the time allowed for placing of the notice, Apple requested 14 days.  That time span “beggared belief” and the Court allowed a generous 48 hours although inviting an application for an extension if it included an explanation for the delay from  a senior executive .  No application was forthcoming and the judge commented “I hope the lack of integrity involved in this incident is entirely atypical of Apple.”

Ouch! 

The European Patent Office (EPO) has now made available a second set of European languages in its free automatic translation service Patent Translate. With the addition of Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Norwegian and Polish, the service now enables translation from, and into, English for thirteen languages and is accessible on the EPO’s free online patent database, Espacenet.

Just one word of warning though – in our experience these automated translations can sometimes be very hard to decipher! 

The Technology Strategy Board is offering the chance to win Innovation Vouchers up to a value of £5,000 for start-up, micro, small or medium-sized business to obtain the help of an external expert- including Patent Attorneys – to develop ideas and improve performance. 

The vouchers are directed to certain technological areas and are issued every 3 months around specific themes.  The current themes are Agrifood, Built Environment and Space. 

As the telecoms market matures and obtaining or maintaining market share becomes increasingly competitive, organisations can be expected to seek ways to maintain it by use of the patent portfolios that they have built up during the development phase of their technology. 

We are seeing an increase in a number of technology fields being widely reported in the press.  The stock market is becoming increasingly interested in how companies protect their intellectual property rights (IPRs) and enforcement can have a material effect on the price of a company’s shares.  

In this article, it is reported that Vringo Infrastructure Inc, a unit of mobile phone software maker Vringo Inc, filed for patent infringement against the UK unit of Chinese telecommunications equipment maker ZTE Corp.  This has dramatically driven up Vringo’s share price.

Clearly, to secure investment and a market valuation which reflects a company’s worth it is increasingly important to wisely invest in patent protection to protect a company’s valuable innovations.    

We are pleased to announce that Maschio & Soames LLP is a gold sponsor at this years European Antibody Congress 2012 which is being held in Geneva, Switzerland on 27-28 November 2012.  This conferece is Europe’s leading congress for antibody discovery, development and partnering.
 
Tony Maschio and Candi Soames have specialised in intellectual property in immunology and antibody technology since the early 1990s, working with some of the best-known names in the industry, and continue to do so.

Tony Maschio will be speaking at this conference about “Clearing the path to market”.    

Further details about this conference can be found here. 

The conference brochure can be found here.       

A  new small claims track was introduced to the Patents County Court (PCC) on 1 October 2012.  The aim is to speed  up the court process and make it cheaper and easier to protect intellectual property (IP) rights. 

The small claims track provides copyright, trade mark and unregistered design holders the option of pursuing  basic IP disputes through an informal hearing, without legal representation.  This will reduce the cost of pursuing IP infringement cases. 

Whilst this new track is welcome news, it will probably be of limited interest since claims will be subject to damages restrictions of £5,000 or less.  

Full details can be found here.   

This draft agreement on the Unified Patent Court will be discussed at the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee meeting on 10-11 October 2012.  For further details of the changes to the draft agreeement click here. 

The notion behind ‘Peer to Patent’ is to provide a web-based interface that more easily enables the general public, especially technical research communities, to contribute observations on patent applications.  It is hoped that implementing this type of system at the UKIPO will increase the useful information available to patent examiners, thereby improving the patent examination process.

The UKIPO ran a pilot for 9 months and limited the study to 172 applications in the specific field of computing.  The final report reveals that the rate of observations increased from below 1% to 6% and, importantly, over half of these observations contained relevant information for the patent examiner. The UKIPO has therefore concluded that this system appears to make an incremental, but significant improvement in their ability to obtain prior art relevant to patent applications. 

Looking forward, the UKIPO believes this relatively encouraging result justifies the introduction of an observations submission button on their online patent information system: Ipsum. It has been indicated that further enhancements may be included over time such as providing a discussion forum with listed observer submissions and assisting with the accessibility of applications to enable reviewers to focus on technical areas of interest.

Patent examiner Thierry Schmitter won a bronze medal at the Paralympics in London in the Single-Person Keelboat (2.4mR) category.  Click here for further details.   

Ireland has acceded to the London Agreement, which means that it will no longer be necessary to translate into English the complete text of a granted European Patent which was published in French or German.  The claims of such a patent are always published in all three official languages and so will always be available in English.  For further information click here. 

Apple has enforced its “Bounce Back” patent EP2126678B against Google/Motorola in Germany.  The bounce back patent covers devices in which the action of scrolling on a touch screen allows the document to “bounce back” when the limits of the document are reached.

The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States has confirmed that isolated gene sequences are patentable which is good news for companies developing gene-based therapies and diagnostics (Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) and ACLU v. USPTO and Myriad Genetics).  This judgement brings pratice in the US into line with many other jurisdications – including the UK Intellectual Property Office and the European Patent Office – on gene sequence patentability.

Further information can be found here.   

Tony Maschio has co-authored an article for Bloomberg BNA’s Life Science’s Law & Industry Report. The article, titled “Is Mayo v. Prometheus the End of Diagnostic Patents?,” examines the potential impact of the United States Supreme Court’s March 2012 decision that a method for adjusting a drug dosage after observing a patient’s reaction to a drug administration was patent-ineligible subject matter. The authors provide both U.S. and European considerations of the unanimous ruling, ultimately asserting that Prometheus does not spell the end of diagnostic patents.

Published by Bloomberg BNA, the Life Sciences Law & Industry Report provides biweekly updates on current regulatory, legislative, and legal issues affecting the many disciplines that make up the burgeoning life sciences industry.

To read the article click here.    

Presenters included Richard Teal from the Manufacturing Advisory Service, Gary Townley from the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO), Alan Scrase from SETsquared and Professor Simon J. Cox from the Computational Engineering Design Research Group at the University of Southampton. 

Do you need some free introductory information about applying for a patent?  Try this free guide from the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO).

Do you need some introductory information about intellectual property rights?  Try this free guide from the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO).   

Nominations for the European Inventor Award 2013 are now open.  The deadline for nominations is 11 october 2012.

The Opposition procedure can be used to challenge the validity of another parties granted European patent before the European Patent Office.  The procedure is centralised which means that a successful challenge will be effective in all of the European contracting states covered by the granted patent.  The Opposition procedure is a popular tool in European patent practice.  It can filed anonymously so the true identity of the Opponent does not have to be revealed.  We have successfully attacked and defended valuable European patents for our clients. A brief outline of the opposition procedure follows below:

i. Grounds for challenging validity
A European patent can be challenged on the grounds that at least: (i) the claimed invention is not patentable (ie. it is not novel and/or inventive); (ii) the patent insufficiently describes how to perform the invention; and/or (iii) the granted patent contains new matter which extends beyond the scope of the application as filed.

ii. Preparing a Notice of Opposition
A notice of Opposition must include a written reasoned statement indicating the facts, the evidence, and arguments relied upon. An Opposition fee must also be paid. The notice of Opposition has to be filed and the fee paid within nine months of the publication of the mention of grant of the European patent. 

iii. Evidence and arguments
The likelihood of success of the Opposition will depend upon the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments that are filed in the notice of Opposition. To attack the patentability of the invention, it is necessary to submit prior art documents in order to argue that the alleged invention lacks novelty and/or inventive step. We are able to assist client’s in this regard in order to develop the strongest attacks.

iv. Examination of the Opposition
The notice of Opposition will be forwarded to the patentee for comment who may submit counter-arguments and optionally, amended claims, may be filed. The opponent will receive a copy of the patentee’s response upon which they may comment. In fact, any number of further observations from the patentee or the opponent can be filed until such time as the Opposition Division decides that they are able to reach a decision or issue a summons to oral proceedings.  At the oral proceedings, after hearing the parties arguments, a decision will be reached which will be to revoke the patent, to maintain the patent as granted, or to maintain the patent in amended form. After a few months, a written decision outlining the Opposition Division’s reasoning for their decision will be issued. This decision can be appealed to the EPO’s Board of Appeal by any of the parties adversely affected by the decision.

If you require any further information on opposing a European patent or have received a Notice of opposition filed by a third party then please contact us. 

We are pleased to announce that Annabel Hampshire has passed the European Qualifying Examination to become a European Patent Attorney and is now a fully qualified European and Chartered UK Patent Attorney.  Congratulations Annabel!

The UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) runs numerous events throughout the UK and abroad which have an emphasis on intellectual property. The list of events is is updated regularly and can be found here.