Angel IP is pleased to announce its main practitioner's success in obtaining revocation by the UK High Court of RegenLab’s UK patent EP(GB)2073862 in the case RegenLab SA v Estar Technologies Limited et al [2019] EWHC 63. Angel IP’s founder, David Sant, who (as lead solicitor at his previous firm) successfully acted for the three Defendants, Estar Technologies, Medira Limited and Lavender Medical Limited, and obtained the court’s declaration of invalidity of the patent.

The invalidity case hung primarily on prior disclosure by the Claimant without any burden of confidentiality.

In a judgment published on 18 January 2019 His Honour Judge Hacon held that all claims of the patent lacked novelty due to prior disclosure of the invention in Japan in June 2005 and would have been obvious to a skilled team on receipt of the Claimant’s product with instructions for users. The judge held that the patent as applied to be amended by the Claimant would also be invalid.

The decision is also noteworthy for its treatment of the patent in respect of the doctrine of equivalence set out in the Supreme Court’s case of Actavis UK Ltd v Eli Lilly & Co [2017] UKSC 48; [2017] RPC 21.

The full judgment is available at https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/IPEC/2019/63.html