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United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions >> Bollard Proof Ltd and Michael Harrison (Patent) [2023] UKIntelP o005223 (24 January 2023) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIntelP/2023/o005223.html Cite as: [2023] UKIntelP o5223, [2023] UKIntelP o005223 |
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Summary
The claimant requested revocation of the patent relating to a device for testing a dockside bollard on the grounds that it lacked novelty and inventive step over two prior art documents D1 and D2. The patentee conceded lack of novelty over D1 and proposed unconditional amendment of claim 1 to overcome the attack on validity. The claimant maintained that the proposed amended claim lacked inventive step over D1. D1 disclosed a testing arrangement for bollards that had a slightly different arrangement for applying an angular load to the bollard under test, namely an inclined cross-beam support at an angle of 11 degrees. D1 suggested that the angular load could be varied to accommodate different bollard geometries. The claimant argued that the skilled team would consider it obvious to replace the inclined cross-beam support with a pivot arrangement as in the patent.
The hearing officer disagreed, finding that while pivots would have been known to the skilled team, it would not have been obvious to replace the angled support with a pivot. The hearing officer allowed the patent to be amended as proposed and to be maintained in amended form.
Full decisionO/0052/23 
523Kb
