Category:  ‘High Court Decisions’

Israeli Company’s Patent Held Partially Valid By UK Patent Court

July 10, 2010

Israeli Company “Yozmot 33 Ltd.” Sued HTC. for infringement of a mobile-related European (UK) patent.

HTC argued the patent is invalid due to lack of novelty, obviousness, insufficiency, added matter and unpatentable subject matter.

Hon. Justice Arnold held claims 1, 5 and 6 to be invalid for lack of novelty and obviousness. The allegations of insufficiency, added matter and unpatentable subject matter failed, so claim 7 was found valid.

The court further found that had claims 1, 5 and 6 been valid, they would have been infringed by HTC.

We found this case particularly interesting becuase of Yozmot’s expert background, who graduated from the best technological university in Israel – the Israel institute of technology, and works for Elbit, which was described in the ruling as large defence electronics manufacturer (in fact – the largest non-govermental defense company in Israel). We found him interesting becuase it is an opportunity to brag – both the Israel Institute of Technology and Elbit are Fisher Weiler Jones clients.
The ruling can be accessed here.


Software Patents in the UK

May 29, 2009

Up until March 2008, software patents were hardly allowed in the UK. The breakthrough was on the High Court of Justice Decision in the matter of SYMBIAN LTD V. Controller General of Patents, where a method of accessing DLL files was claimed.

Since this blog is not about philosophy but about bottom lines – here it is: UK law is being put in line with European law. Software claims will be allowed if they include a technical effect. Naturally, it will take examiners time to get the point, but they will eventually.

Here is the bottom line from the ruling:

“The question I must now consider is whether the decision prohibits the patenting of all computer programs and, in particular, those which under the old approach would have been considered to make a conventional computer operate in a new way so as to deliver a relevant technical contribution…UK-IPO has apparently concluded that it does and so has reverted to its previous practice of rejecting all computer program claims … I do not detect anything in the reasoning of the Court of Appeal which suggests that all computer programs are necessarily excluded,”