Invention meaning

Emotional Perception AI Ltd seeks to promote a so-called 'Frankenstein test' that merges the European Patent Office's (EPO) endorsed approach, intended purely to excise certain patentability exclusions obstructing protection for its invention, counsel for the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) told the court on 22 July 2025. Describing it as 'a recipe for disaster', Brian Nicholson KC, acting for the comptroller-general of patents, said on 22 July 2025 that almost every patent case would then have to decipher a new standard from the sheet his learned friend handed round. Emotional Perception aims to obtain a patent for an artificial neural network, or ANN, which offers media recommendations by reference to the 'physical' properties of another song or image, as part of its bid to secure patent protection ultimately...

Radmat Building Products Ltd stated before the High Court, in a July 2025 defence newly made public, that Aco Ahlmann SE & Co KG ought to be stripped of its exclusive rights to a roof-based drainage system capable of retaining water, contending that one of Radmat's then-available products could have led engineers to devise it. Ahlmann has lately claimed Radmat produced a drainage solution named 'PermaQuik 800' that trespasses on its invention. Radmat now maintains, the defence says, that one of its roofing systems disclosed crucial aspects of Ahlmann's concept before the competitor sought protection for it...

Our observations so far suggest the Unified Patent Court’s approach to inventive step is more all-encompassing, concentrating on whether the skilled person would have been prompted to contemplate the claimed solution and adopt it as a natural progression from the prior art. Further, in contrast to the EPO’s problem–solution methodology, the UPC does not yet appear persuaded that a reasonable expectation of success must be shown to establish obviousness. Given these differing frameworks, there is scope for divergent outcomes on identical facts. Even so, both the UPC and the EPO seem conscious of the danger of inconsistent rulings between the two systems. In this piece, we consider four EPO practices which, though not invariably applied today, may gain traction in the interests of harmonisation, as they arguably align more closely with the UPC’s stance on inventive step. Background The EPO routinely employs the problem and solution approach when assessing whether an invention involves an inventive step. As confirmed by the Enlarged Board of Appeal in Syngenta v HGF,...

ARCHIVED: This Practice Note is archived and not maintained. It was originally prepared for Lexis Practice Advisor®, in the US. What is a patent? Under the US Patent Act 1952 (Patents Act), patents are issued by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). A patent owner holds a time-limited right to stop others from practising the claimed invention within the United States. The most common form is the utility patent, typically claiming a tangible thing or a set of steps. Design patents protect the ornamental appearance of an article of manufacture. Plant patents safeguard a plant variety produced through grafting, budding, or comparable methods (rather than by seed). Importantly, eligible subject matter must be stated in the patent claim itself; a disclosure in the specification alone is not enough. See Two-Way Media Ltd v Comcast Cable Communs, LLC, 874 F.3d 1329, 1338-1339 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 1, 2017) (not reported by LexisNexis®)...

ARCHIVED: This Practice Note is archived and no longer updated. It was initially prepared for Lexis Practice Adviser, in the US. It outlines similarities and differences between the protections available for typical categories of IP, such as literary works (copyright and trade secret); marketing imagery, characters and slogans (copyright and trade mark); product designs (design patent, copyright and trade dress) and inventions (patent and trade secret). It addresses coverage and duration, as well as scope and eligibility requirements too. Literary works—copyright versus trade secret protection For information to amount to a trade secret, it must truly be confidential, the proprietor must take steps to preserve that confidentiality, and it must confer a competitive economic benefit on the owner. Trade secrets usually comprise commercial or business information and may endure without limit, provided the secrecy is maintained. Copyright, by contrast, applies to subject matter such as literary works, audiovisual works, and sound recordings, and only requires that the work is fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Copyright protection...

Grounds of patent revocation Patents can be revoked (ie taken off the patents register) where they are found invalid in some respect. A revoked patent is treated as though it never existed. The statutory bases for revocation are contained in section 72 of the Patents Act 1977 (PA 1977). These include that the invention is not patentable (eg it lacks novelty, inventiveness or industrial applicability) and that the specification fails to disclose the invention with sufficient clarity and completeness for a person skilled in the art to put it into effect. This deficiency is called ‘insufficiency’. This Practice Note focuses on patent invalidity arising from insufficiency. For details on other invalidity grounds, see the following Practice Notes: Patent invalidity—grounds of revocation Patent invalidity—obviousness Patent invalidity—lack of novelty Claim construction/scope To assess validity and/or infringement, the court must interpret the patent claims—ie ascertain their meaning and extent. For further guidance on claim construction, see Practice Note: Patent infringement—Claim construction/scope...

Claim No : [ insert claim number ] IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICEBUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS OF ENGLAND & WALESINTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LIST (ChD)[ Patents Court OR Intellectual Property Enterprise Court ] Between:[ insert name ] Claimant/Part 20 Defendantand[ insert name ] First Defendant/Part 20 Claimant[ insert name ] Second Defendant/Part 20 Claimant Grounds of invalidity Set out below are the Grounds of Invalidity for [ GB Patent OR European Patent (UK) ] [ number ] (the Patent), as identified in the Defence and Counterclaim accompanying these Grounds, and on which the Defendants/Part 20 Claimants intend to rely. The purported invention, in all claims of the Patent, is not patentable because its subject matter lacked novelty in view of the state of the art at the Patent’s priority date [ and common general knowledge ]...