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Reports of Patent, Design and Trade Mark Cases 2004 121(24-25):919-971; doi:10.1093/rpc/2004rpc46
© 2004 by Crown Copyright
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© Crown Copyright

[2004] R.P.C. 46

TECHNIP FRANCE SA'S PATENT

Court of Appeal

(Pill, Mummery and Jacob L.JJ.): April 1, 20041

[2004] R.P.C. 46

Patent—Laying flexible pipes offshore—Infringement—Novelty—Inventive step—Person skilled in the art—Whether a "nerd" or part-way to being an "android"—Expert witness—Function to educate court on technology—Reasons for any opinion important—Construction of claim—Protection governed by terms of claim construed purposively—No general doctrine of equivalents—Meaning of language in claim most sensibly construed on the lines "did it mean this, or that, or the other?" rather than "what did it mean?"—Reversal on appeal of decision on novelty—Whether a matter of precision or of degree—Reversal of decision on inventive step—Decision below inherently conjectural or erroneous in principle—Appeal allowed with patent held valid and infringed.

Practice—Product or process alleged to infringe—Formal proof of description by witness at trial.

Key Words: Burden of proof • Claim construction • Infringement • Inventive step • Novelty • Patents • Revocation • Skilled persons

1 Paragraph numbers in this judgment are as assigned by the court.


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