Claydon Yield-O-Meter Limited v Mzuri Limited & anr [2021] EWHC 1007 (IPEC)
This was a claim for infringement of two patents relating to agricultural machinery. The patents were directed to apparatus for performing one-pass “strip tillage”, in which one row of leading tines produces strips of disturbed soil in otherwise uncultivated ground, and an aligned second row of tines is used to place rows of seed into the disturbed strips of soil. The Defendants’ range of “Pro-Til” seed drills was alleged to infringe both patents.
The Defendants denied infringement and counterclaimed for invalidity on the basis of lack of novelty and obviousness, relying upon a prior use and two documentary prior art citations.
An interesting aspect of the Defendants’ invalidity case involved the prior use by the Claimant of prototype equipment in a field adjoining public roads and a footpath. It was undisputed that the prior use had taken place, and that the equipment had the features required by the relevant claims of the patent. However, the Claimant contended that nobody had in fact observed the apparatus in use, and had anybody attempted to do so steps would have been taken to conceal the operation of the apparatus from them. Thus, the Claimant maintained, no enabling disclosure of the relevant features of the prototype equipment had been made available to the public.
Following a three day trial, the Court found both patents to be invalid. One of the patents would have been infringed had it been valid, but the other would not. In relation to the prior use, the Court held that it was irrelevant that nobody did in fact observe the apparatus being used and that, on the facts, any effort to conceal the relevant features of the apparatus from a hypothetical observer would not have been successful.
Brian Nicholson QC and David Ivison acted for the Defendants, instructed by Shakespeare Martineau LLP.