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United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions >> Thomas Swan Company Limited v English Hop Products Limited (Patent) [2004] UKIntelP o14604 (25 May 2004)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIntelP/2004/o14604.html
Cite as: [2004] UKIntelP o14604
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Thomas Swan Company Limited v English Hop Products Limited [2004] UKIntelP o14604 (25 May 2004)
For the whole decision click here: o14604
Patent decision
- BL number
- O/146/04
- Concerning rights in
- GB2336363
- Hearing Officer
- Mr S N Dennehey
- Decision date
- 25 May 2004
- Person(s) or Company(s) involved
- Thomas Swan & Company Limited v English Hop Products Limited
- Provisions discussed
- PA 1977 S. 72 (1)
- Keywords
- Inventive step, Revocation
- Related Decisions
- None
Summary
The patent related to a process for the hydrogenation of hop acids used in beer making which involved carrying out the process in supercritical carbon dioxide over a noble metal catalyst. Thomas Swan contended that the patent should be revoked for lack of inventive step on the basis of a single prior art document which disclosed hydrogenation reactions using supercritical carbon dioxide and a noble metal catalyst. This prior art document disclosed the use of the process to hydrogenate a range of organic compounds. None of these disclosed compounds were hop acids although it was argued by Thomas Swan that some were sufficiently similar. Nevertheless the hearing officer held that these similarities were not sufficient to render the claims of the patent invalid through lack of inventive step and refused the application for revocation.