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Intellectual Property Law

: IPKat

Angora cats have their day in court

By Jeremy

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Readers have been pleading with the IPKat to quote what the Court of Appeal for England and Wales actually said about cats in its recent decision in European Central Bank v DSS (full text here on BAILII; short note here from the IPKat; newsy account here from Managing Intellectual Property).

Right: is this Angora cat a claimant or a defendant? Read on ...

The ipsissima verba of the felinophile Lord Justice Jacob are as follows:

"[This litigation] illustrates yet again the need for a one-stop patent shop (with a ground floor department for first instance and a first floor department for second instance) for those who have Europe-wide businesses. The case illustrates another point too: Kitchin J records at [88] that "the positions adopted by DSS before this Court and the CFI are radically different." As he went on to say:
This case therefore seems to me to be a very powerful illustration of why it is desirable to try infringement and validity issues together, where at all possible. If they are tried separately it is all too easy for the patentee to argue for a narrow interpretation of his claim when defending it but an expansive interpretation when asserting infringement.
Professor Mario Franzosi likens a patentee to an Angora cat. When validity is challenged, the patentee says his patent is very small: the cat with its fur smoothed down, cuddly and sleepy. But when the patentee goes on the attack, the fur bristles, the cat is twice the size with teeth bared and eyes ablaze".

The IPKat endorsed the sentiment that this case was a good advertisement for centralised patent litigation in Europe [Merpel thought it a good advertisement for mediation, too], but modestly refrained from preening himself on the cat point.

Angora cats here
More than one way to skin a cat here
More than one way to cook a cat here

Full post as published by IPKat on March 25, 2008 (boomark / email).