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United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions >> Philip Nixon (Patent) [2011] UKIntelP o00811 (13 January 2011) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIntelP/2011/o00811.html Cite as: [2011] UKIntelP o00811, [2011] UKIntelP o811 |
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For the whole decision click here: o00811
Summary
The invention concerns a device for raising the height of a piece of furniture. It has two linked end supports, each end support having a cup-shaped leg clamp, which is designed to receive the furniture leg. A clamp screw with a clamping button on the end is tightened so that the clamping button presses onto the furniture leg.
The application had been the subject of a previous decision, in which claim 1 (as it then stood) was found to lack inventive step in light of an earlier GB patent application which disclosed all of the features of the claimed invention except the clamping button.
The applicant subsequently amended claim 1 in an attempt to overcome this decision, but the hearing officer found that the feature which had been incorporated into claim 1 was one that also appeared in the relevant earlier GB application. He found the invention of claim 1 to lack inventive step, and also that the features of the clamping button set out in the dependant claims were routine workshop modifications which the skilled person could bring to bear on the invention of claim 1 without displaying any inventive ingenuity.
The applicant also requested an extension to the compliance period on the basis of Office delays in processing the application. The hearing officer considered the prosecution history of the case, and noted that there had been a delay of a few months in issuing two of the seven examination reports. He did not consider that these delays amounted to a procedural irregularity, and could find no such irregularity on which to base an extension of time under rule 107.
The application was refused under section 18(3).
