Patent decision

BL number

O/073/14

Concerning rights in

EP(UK) 1980746

Hearing Officer

Mr J Elbro

Decision date

11 February 2014

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

McLaughlin & Harvey Limited and Openhydro Group Limited

Provisions discussed

Patents Act 1977 sections 7, 37

Keywords

Entitlement, Inventorship

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The patent related to a deployment method for a turbine base which is deployed on the seabed. The claimant and the defendant worked together on a project in this area, and the dispute was whose employees had devised the invention.

The dispute hinged around what had occurred between the production by the claimant of two separate sets of slides - the second set showing the invention and the first (Produced a month earlier) not. The first set of slides showed an initially-buoyant turbine base deployed by a different method. It was apparent that the claimants had come up with the idea of using a heavier than water base instead, but the question was whether they had also devised the deployment method and communicated it to the defendant, or whether the defendant was already aware of the concept. The hearing officer found some difficulties with the evidence of the claimant’s witnesses and although he considered it not possible to be certain what the truth was, on the balance of probabilities he found that the invention was devised by the defendant’s employees.