Ipcomv Vodafone News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

The 'doctrine of equivalents' (ie, the principle that a patent may be infringed by a product or process which is considered equivalent to that protected by the granted patent) was not historically adopted by the UK courts. It arrived in UK patent law only following the landmark Supreme Court decision in <i>Actavis UK v Eli Lilly</i> in 2017. Now, four years on from that decision, this article considers the post-<i>Actavis</i> development of the doctrine, recent trends and implications for litigants in the United Kingdom.

In its first patent decision of 2021 ( IPCom v Vodafone [2021] EWCA Civ 205), the Court of Appeal narrowed the scope of the rarely invoked Crown use defence to patent infringement. So far, the decision has avoided much comment. This article reports the court's findings and considers the decision's implications, which may extend beyond the telecoms industry to other areas, such as the life sciences sector, which is particularly significant in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Facts IPCom was a non-practising entity which acquired a portfolio of telecoms patents from Robert Bosch in 2007. O...