Has Lord Neuberger in Actavis 1 introduced “an amorphous general inventive idea” 2 test to determine UK patent infringement by equivalents? Are “inessential integers”, once found extremely rarely 3, now to be embraced as part of normal UK practice? Have UK patent claims become “a puzzle game”?4

  1. Actavis v Eli Lilly [2017] UKSC 48.
  2. The Swedish Doctrine of Equivalence (2011) by Professor Bengt Domeij, Uppsala University, top of page 3, available in English at http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:391087/FULLTEXT01.pdf.
  3. Patents for Inventions, Blanco White, 5th Edition, paragraph 2-111.
  4. Napp v Dr Reddy’s [2016] EWCA Civ 1053 at paragraph 71 per Floyd L.J. “A patent specification is not intended to be a puzzle game in which the skilled person must come up with his own theory as to what degree of precision was intended by the patentee.”