The Bottom Line

Hosted by Evan Davis, ‘The Bottom Line’ on BBC Radio 4 is billed as ‘the business conversation show with people at the top giving insight into what matters’.
 
Last week’s edition on ‘Inventors’ included Shaun Pulfrey, inventor of the Tangle Teezer™ hair brush, first showcased on the ‘Dragons' Den’ TV programme in 2007.  At that time, the ‘Dragons’ declined to invest in Shaun’s company.

Shaun has had the last laugh, explaining in last week’s programme that the turnover of his company this year has been £22 million.  But, the company notes:

In recent months, the Tangle Teezer brand seems to have become a victim of its own success. The phenomenal demand for our brushes has unfortunately led to a recent increase in the sale of counterfeit products. We have become aware that auction sites and small web-shops are a huge part of the problem and we discourage anyone from buying from such unauthorised sellers.

There are many ways of using intellectual property in engineering business. You should of course seek professional advice on your own particular circumstances.

Designed Around

Mansfield-based Johnson Magnetic Filters filed a patent application in May 2011 for a magnetic filter apparatus 'configurable to remove both magnetic and non-magnetic particulate impurities from fluid flowing through a central heating system'.  The application was granted in May 2013.

In the interim, Sheffield company Eclipse Magnetics Ltd launched their Boilermag (TM) Domestic Heating System Filter, which they claimed 'removes both magnetic and non-magnetic debris'.

In September last year, Johnson sought an opinion from the UK Intellectual Property Office that the Boilermag (TM) product infringed its granted patent.

However, last month, the Office issued its opinion that Eclipse had designed its Boilermag (TM) product - most likely without knowledge of Johnson's patent - such that it fell outside the scope of that patent and so did not infringe.

If there is no infringement, then Johnson cannot use its patent to exclude the Boilermag (TM) product from the UK market.

This is but one of many ways of using intellectual property in engineering business. You should of course seek professional advice on your own particular circumstances.

Stick v Carrot

As noted on Wikipedia with reference to Charles R. Neuenschwander, stick licensing "is the practice of licensing a patent … where the patent holder threatens to sue the licensee for patent infringement if the licensee does not take a licence."

At first sight, stick licensing would appear to be a more promising approach than carrot licensing, which requires "luring the target to adopting one's invention and taking a license" (Matthew Y Ma).

But success of the stick licensing approach is not guaranteed: US software company Assia Inc. sued British Telecom for patent infringement when BT did not take a licence to Assia’s broadband patents. The England and Wales Court of Appeal ruled that there was indeed infringement.

However, rather than taking a licence from Assia, British Telecom chose instead to switch off that part of its 'Infinity' broadband system that was deemed to infringe.

This is but one of many ways of using intellectual property in engineering business. You should of course seek professional advice on your own particular circumstances.

'Very Profitable'

… is how wind turbine manufacturer Wobben described the alleged use by Siemens and its customer of technology that reduces the impact on the electricity network of wind turbine shut-downs in extreme wind conditions.

Moreover, Wobben’s early recognition of this impact meant that it was able to obtain broad patent protection for the solution, the main patent claim having less than sixty words.

On the down side, the time elapsed between Wobben's recognition and the alleged use by competitors means that there now remain only two years before the patent reaches the end of its twenty year life.

This is but one of many ways of using intellectual property in engineering business. You should of course seek professional advice on your own particular circumstances.

Are you being observed?

With a view to ensuring that a patent application is only granted for an invention that is new and non-obvious, a patent office will carry out a search.  Most inventors understand that, if this search identifies relevant public disclosures that pre-date the patent application filing date, patent grant may be denied.

 

Fewer inventors are aware that some patent offices also allow the general public to submit details of relevant earlier public disclosures.  Such third party observations can sometimes be made anonymously.

 

Environmental Defence Systems Ltd (EDS) fell foul of the latter.  In 2008, the European Patent Office carried out a search on EDS' patent application for a flood defence barrage unit and identified two earlier documents of relevance.  EDS subsequently amended its application to focus on those parts of its invention that it believed to be patentable over the two documents.

 

However, in 2010, two years after EDS had started marketing its barrage unit, an anonymous letter was sent to the European Patent Office listing a further eight documents which, the letter argued, showed that the invention was completely known or obvious at the patent application filing date and thus completely unpatentable.

 

Until the European Patent Office decides whether this is indeed the case, the application cannot be granted and cannot be enforced against competitors in the courts.

 

This is but one of many ways of using intellectual property in engineering business. You should of course seek professional advice on your own particular circumstances.

 

 

Reality Check

It is always nice to know that the time and effort spent on patent protecting a technology is not wasted, in particular that a technology can be wildly successful and that, in the absence of patent protection, competitors will move in.

Such is the case with Xaar plc, “a decently run company with good products and a strong market position” according to The Times.  As a manufacturer of digital printheads for ceramic tiles, Xaar had “an exceptionally good 2013 on the back of a boom in Chinese construction” with a market share of 75 per cent.

However, The Times notes that this market share “has attracted Japanese competitors and hit pricing” in 2014. This is particularly because some of the competitors are long-standing licensees of Xaar technology against whom Xaar has reduced scope for enforcing its patents to defend its market share.

A more detailed analysis of Xaar’s intellectual property business models is to be found in a Cranfield University working paper available at http://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/4685.

A two-day course on engineering intellectual property for business advantage is also running at Cranfield University in October.  Further details can be be found at http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/courses/training/engineering-intellectual-property-ip.html.

This is but one of many ways of using intellectual property in engineering business. You should of course seek professional advice on your own particular circumstances.

'Infringement' and 'Validity'

Clear communication is as much of a challenge in IP management as in any other field of business.
 
Recent litigation in the UK courts concerns a letter sent by a patent attorney to his client reporting a search carried out for patents in the name of another company, H. The search had shown only one patent in existence relating to company H and the patent attorney’s letter had stated "Therefore I believe the only problem you will have with this problem will be in the United States."

Ten years later and the patent attorney and his client were in dispute over what this statement meant. The patent attorney contended this was advice related to the likely infringement of the scope of the claims of H’s patent by the client. The client contended this was advice related to the likely validity of the client’s own patent application in the light of the disclosure of H’s patent.

"This difference between scope of a claim and disclosure is universal" noted the judge deciding the litigation. "A patent claim may have wider scope than the thing described in the specification. So it is possible to have two patents, one earlier than the other, in which the later one is novel (and inventive) over the earlier one but for which the product described in the later one infringes the earlier one."

This is but one of many ways of using intellectual property in engineering business. You should of course seek professional advice on your own particular circumstances.