IDA Ltd and Others v Southampton University and Others
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 02 March 2006 |
| Date | 02 March 2006 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
COURT OF APPEAL
Before Lord Justice Ward, Lord Justice Jacob and Lord Justice Wilson.
DISPUTES over entitlement to a patent were on the increase, extremely expensive and were more likely where the parties did not have an agreement in writing.
The Court of Appeal so observed in a reserved judgment when allowing an appeal relating to a pest control invention, brought by the claimants, including IDA Ltd and Mr Colin Metcalf, from Mr Justice Laddie who in July 2004 held the defendants, including the University of Southampton and Professor Philip Howse, were entitled to be joint patent-holders with the claimants.
Mr Peter Prestcott, QC and Mr James St Ville for the claimants; Mr Daniel Alexander, QC for the defendants.
LORD JUSTICE JACOB said that in an unusual case of an unskilled person establishing himself as the sole deviser of an invention, the judge had erred in upsetting the decision of the hearing officer, Mr Sean Dennehey, that the patent be in the sole ownership of the claimants.
However, because of the unexplained rash of entitlement cases before the Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks, the following observations warranted being set out:
1 Entitlement disputes inevitably gave rise to many issues of fact and could readily become overheated and prolix.
2 Such disputes were more likely where the parties' relationships had not been reduced to writing.
3 It was clearly unsatisfactory for a dispute to be in two different tribunals.
The comptroller's jurisdiction should be reserved for relatively straightforward cases, complex cases being referred by him at an early stage to the High Court or the county...
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