Patent decision

BL number

O/202/14

Concerning rights in

EP 0461761 B1

Hearing Officer

Mr A C Howard

Decision date

7 May 2014

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Malcolm Paul Varnham and Diana Hodgins and BAE Systems plc

Provisions discussed

Patents Act 1977 Sections 40, 118; Patents Rules 2007 Rules 51, 53

Keywords

Confidentiality, Decline to deal, Employees / employment

Related Decisions

O/517/13

Summary

In the previous decision the Hearing Officer had declined to deal with the substantive claim to employee compensation under section 40. The present decision deals with the question of the publication of the earlier decision and the confidentiality of documents filed at the Office in connection with the proceedings. The Hearing Officer decided that in accordance with Rule 51(3)(a), documents filed at the Office (including the statements of case and skeleton arguments) must remain not open to public inspection. However the decision itself did not fall within the scope of this provision and there was no justification for allowing the defendant’s request that it should not be published. The Hearing Officer further refused to grant requests from the claimants for rulings on whether the parties are free to use outside these proceedings documents (notably the statements of case and skeleton arguments) which were not produced under compulsion; and on whether the defendant was out of time for requesting that the statements of case and skeleton arguments should be treated as confidential under Rule 53 (no such request having actually been made).