UK Litigation
Select Healthcare (UK) Ltd v Cromptons Healthcare Ltd [2011] EWHC 1830 (Pat)
Re: Alleged Infringement of British Patent No. 2,433,244 – In the High Court
We acted for the Defendant in this patent infringement action, counterclaiming for revocation. The action was entirely successful for our client, resulting in a decision by the Court that the patent was not infringed and invalid. Our client was awarded its costs.
Paul A M Beese v Alastair Martin T/as Spekkles (2009)
Re: Alleged Infringement of British Patent No. 2,353,102 – In the Patents County Court
We acted for the defendant in a patent infringement action. Our client alleged that he had sold articles the subject of the complaint before the filing date of the patent. We were successful in an application to the Court to have the case struck-out with costs being awarded to our client.
PAG Limited v Hawk-Woods [2002] FSR 723
Re: Passing off Action in the High Court
We were acting for the Claimant in a passing off action against Hawk-Woods relating to the use of the PAG trade mark on refurbished batteries. We obtained a summary judgement in our client’s favour, with the consequence that the Defendant had to cease its infringing activities and pay our client costs and damages.
McAlpine & Company Ltd v Eskander Corporation NV (2002-2003)
Re: Revocation Action against British Patent 2,329,332 – Action in the UK Patent Office
We were acting for the patent proprietor in defence of an action seeking revocation of the patent. The patent was upheld in amended form by the Patent Office.
Pegasus Egerton Ltd v Huntleigh Technology plc (1999-2000)
Re: Alleged Infringement of British Patent 2,312,835 – Action in the High Court
We were acting for the Defendant. The Claimant eventually dropped the action when we were able to provide proof that the patent was invalid and would be revoked if the Claimant pursued the case to trial.
Bodum (UK) Limited v Household Articles Limited [1998] EWHC Patents 344
Re: Revocation Action Against British Registered Design No. 2044802 –In the High Court
We were acting for the rights holder in an action by Bodum seeking revocation of the registered design. Bodum was unsuccessful and the registration upheld by the Court.
We successfully defended concurrent parallel actions in other countries in Europe, with the result that in all countries the registered designs were held to be valid.
Current Actions
We are currently acting for a number of clients in Court actions, including a Registered Design infringement action against a major drinks manufacturer and a Trade Mark infringement action for a well-known windows manufacturer.
Customs Seizures
We have also been successful in preventing the importation of infringing goods for a number of clients, particularly in the perfumes/fashion industry and in household products.
Foreign Litigation
United State of America
Anton Bauer Inc v PAG Limited (2001)
Re : Alleged Infringement of US Patent 4,810,204
We were acting for the defendant who was accused of infringing this US patent. The Claimant lost the case and, unusually in US litigation, our client was deemed to have won so comprehensively the it was awarded a substantial part of its costs.
Germany
Eppendorf AG v Hybaid GmbH (1999-2008)
Re: German Utility Model 296 23 597
German Patent 196 46 115 and
European Patent EP0881950
This case involved a series of actions in the German Courts and at the European Patent Office. All the Actions went to Appeal and the infringement action based on the German patent went to the German Supreme Court.
We acted for the defendant and were successful in: (a) restricting the scope of the Utility Model to the extent that our client was held not to infringe. We were successful in revoking both the German and the European patents. The outcome was that the Claimant lost all the actions.
China
We are currently pursuing Chinese infringers for a British client, already having achieved success in closing off sales channels and pursuing the infringers via the Chinese authorities. The intention is to impose export bans on the infringing products as well as similar products being made by other copycat manufacturers. So doing will stop the infringements at source without having to pursue multiple actions in different countries.