Patent decision

BL number

O/310/21

Concerning rights in

GB2571696B

Hearing Officer

Dr L Cullen

Decision date

27 April 2021

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Kohn Associates PLLC

Provisions discussed

Section 74A

Keywords

Opinions and Reviews

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The request for an opinion on validity of granted patent GB 2571696 B was refused by the Hearing Officer under section 74A(3)(b) which provides that the comptroller shall not issue an opinion if for any reason they consider it is inappropriate in the circumstances to do so. The request was based upon a prior art document acknowledged in the application for the patent and was cited in a further search report relating to the application. It was also identified and discussed in the response from the applicant which accompanied the amended claims that were considered in order for grant. The hearing officer decided that it would be inappropriate to reconsider a question that had clearly been considered as part of the normal process leading to the grant of the patent. The hearing officer also noted that the reasons behind the decision of an examiner not to pursue an objection based upon a cited prior art document are not generally publicly available.

Full decisionO/310/21  133Kb