Hoechst Celanese Corporation v BP Chemicals Ltd and Another
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 24 June 1998 |
| Date | 24 June 1998 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
Court of Appeal
Before Lord Justice Nourse, Lord Justice Aldous and Lord Justice May
Patents - context gives meaning to technical terms
In a patent specification, the meaning to be given to technical words was to be decided from the context in which they were used and there was no rebuttable presumption that technical words in technical documents should be given a technical meaning.
The Court of Appeal so stated in reserved judgments dismissing an appeal by BP Chemicals Ltd and Purolite International Ltd from the judgment of Mr Justice Laddie in the Patents Court of the Chancery Division (The Times February 13, 1997) that they had infringed Hoechst Celanese Corporations's European Patent (UK) No 0196173 relating to the removal of alkyl iodides from acetic acid.
Mr David Young, QC and Mr Guy Burkill for BP and Purolite; Mr Anthony Watson, QC and Mr Andrew Waugh for Hoechst.
LORD JUSTICE ALDOUS said that there was no rebuttable presumption that words in a patent specification that could have a technical meaning did have that technical meaning.
The court was entitled to hear evidence as to the meaning of technical words and thereafter had to decide the meaning from the context in which they were used. The specification was a technical document to be construed by the court with the advantage of the knowledge of the notional skilled man in the art.
Where, as in the instant case, the dispute turned on whether the word "dimension" was used to denote diameter or volume, it would be wrong to start the task of construction with any preconceived idea.
Having obtained the knowledge of the notional skilled man, the specification had to be read as a whole to ascertain its meaning and from that the court had to decide the ambit of the monopoly...
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