Principles of Intellectual Property Law (Principles of law series)

Cavendish

Publishing

Limited

CP

London • Sydney

Principles of

Intellectual

Property Law

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

PRINCIPLES OF LAW SERIES

PROFESSOR PAUL DOBSON

Visiting Professor at Anglia Polytechnic University

PROFESSOR NIGEL GRAVELLS

Professor of English Law, Nottingham University

PROFESSOR PHILLIP KENNY

Professor and Head of the Law School, Northumbria University

PROFESSOR RICHARD KIDNER

Professor at the Law Department, University of Wales, Aberystwyth

In order to ensure that the material presented by each title maintains the

necessary balance between thoroughness in content and accessibility in

arrangement, each title in the series has been read and approved by an

independent specialist under the aegis of the Editorial Board. The Editorial

Board oversees the development of the series as a whole, ensuring a

conformity in all these vital aspects.

Catherine Colston, LLB, LLM

Lecturer in Law

University of Buckingham

Cavendish

Publishing

Limited

CP

London • Sydney

Principles of

Intellectual

Property

Law

First published in Great Britain 1999 by Cavendish Publishing Limited

The Glass House, Wharton Street, London WC1X 9PX, United Kingdom.

Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7278 8000 Facsimile: +44 (0) 20 7278 8080

e-mail: [email protected]

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© Colston, C 1999

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,

mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the

terms of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a

licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road,

London W1P 9HE, UK, without the permission in writing of the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Colston, Catherine

Principles of intellectual property law (Principles of law series)

1 Intellectual property – Law and legislation – Great Britain

I Title

346.4'1'048

ISBN 1 85941 465 6

Printed and bound in Great Britain

FOR THE GGs

WITH LOVE

vii

Intellectual property law is fascinating. We are all familiar with, and are users

of, intellectual property. In addition, the subject matter of intellectual property

– the application of an idea in making or selling products and services – forms

the fundament of a society’s cultural, technological, educational and economic

development. With the growth of trade and of the transfer of information on a

world wide scale, both intellectual property law and intellectual property

infringement are a global concern. Continuing rapid technological

development challenges and expands traditional boundaries of intellectual

property regimes. Digital recording technology, the internet, genetic

engineering all pose new challenges and new opportunities. In all, this is a

dynamic and developing subject which touches on a wide area of human

concern – trade, economic progress, intellectual and cultural advancement,

and the acquisition and dissemination of information, as well as the more

prosaic acquisition of goods and chattels.

The book is designed, when used in conjunction with a statute book, to

give a comprehensive and comprehensible introduction to intellectual

property law in the UK, within the international framework of conventions,

treaties and agreements which shape those domestic laws. The dual aim has

been to make the subject both understandable and enjoyable.

It was the preparation of teaching materials for the University of

Buckingham’s part time LLB course which prompted this book and I

gratefully acknowledge the University’s permission to draw on those

copyright Intellectual Property course materials.

It only remains to give further thanks where thanks are eminently due: to

my collegues for their support and encouragement, to Louise Hammond,

Librarian of the Denning Law Library at the University of Buckingham for her

help in tracing materials, to Rob Colston for his unfailing patience and, last,

but by no means least, to Elanor and Andy Mac, and Bridget and Dave for

preserving a much needed sense of proportion.

Catherine Colston

August 1999

PREFACE

ix

Preface vii

Table of Cases xxv

Table of Statutes xlvii

Table of Statutory Instruments liii

Table of European Legislation lv

Table of International Leglislation lix

Table of Abbreviations lxi

1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 PROTECTION FOR IDEAS 2

1.2 MEANS FOR PROTECTING IDEAS 3

1.2.1 Secrecy 3

1.2.2 Exclusive rights 3

1.2.3 Checks and balances on exclusive rights 6

1.3 SOURCES OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW 7

1.3.1 National sources 7

1.3.2 International sources 8

1.3.3 Treaties and conventions 9

1.3.4 The territoriality of intellectual property rights 12

1.4 BASIC FORMAT TO INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ISSUES 12

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 1 13

2 JUSTIFICATION 15

2.1 OBJECTIONS TO EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS 15

2.1.1 Economic objections to monopoly power 16

2.1.2 Objections from developing countries 17

2.1.3 An alternative approach: unfair competition 18

2.2 JUSTIFICATIONS 20

2.2.1 Public justifications 21

2.2.2 Private justification 21

CONTENTS

Principles of Intellectual Property Law

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2.3 JUSTIFICATIONS FOR PATENTS 21

2.3.1 A natural right 22

2.3.2 Reward by monopoly 22

2.3.3 Monopoly profit incentive 22

2.3.4 Exchange for secrets 26

2.3.5 Conclusion 27

2.4 JUSTIFICATIONS FOR COPYRIGHT 27

2.4.1 Authors’ rights and neighbouring rights 27

2.4.2 The origins of UK copyright law 28

2.4.3 Author and entrepreneur 28

2.4.4 Justifications 29

2.5 TRADE MARKS 30

2.5.1 Private justifications 31

2.5.2 Justifications in the public interest 31

2.5.3 Criticisms of trade mark protection 32

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 2 35

3 THE PATENT 37

3.1 THE STRUCTURE OF PATENT LAW 37

3.2 PATENT TERMINOLOGY 38

3.3 PATENTS ACT 1977 39

3.3.1 Provision for convention conformity 39

3.4 APPLICATION FOR A PATENT 40

3.4.1 Routes to grant 41

3.4.2 Priority 41

3.4.3 Priority and enabling disclosures 42

3.4.4 Application for a UK patent 44

3.4.5 Specification and claims 45

3.5 OWNERSHIP OF THE PATENT 46

3.5.1 Ownership by the employer 47

3.5.2 Ownership by the employee 50

Contents

xi

3.5.3 Agreements between employee and employer

concerning patent ownership 50

3.5.4 The compensation scheme 50

3.6 THE PROPRIETARY RIGHT 54

3.6.1 Duration of the patent right 55

3.7 PATENT LICENSES 55

3.7.1 Tying clauses 56

3.7.2 Compulsory licences 56

3.7.3 Licences of right 57

3.7.4 Crown use 57

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 3 59

4 PATENTABLE INVENTIONS 61

4.1 INVENTIONS 61

4.1.1 Judicial dicta 62

4.1.2 The concept of invention 62

4.1.3 Valid patents for inventions 63

4.2 EXCLUDED CATEGORIES 63

4.2.1 The proviso to s 1(2) of the PA 1977 64

4.2.2 Computer programs 65

4.2.3 Discoveries and mathematical methods 69

4.2.4 Schemes, rules and methods 71

4.2.5 Presentations of information 72

4.2.6 Aesthetic creations 73

4.2.7 Exclusions on the ground of morality 73

4.2.8 Biological inventions 76

4.2.9 Plant varieties 77

4.2.10 Animal varieties 78

4.2.11 Essentially biological processes 79

4.2.12 Microbiological processes 80

Principles of Intellectual Property Law

xii

4.3 INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION 81

4.3.1 Industry 81

4.3.2 The useless invention 81

4.3.3 The medical invention 81

4.4 NOVELTY 86

4.4.1 The right to work 86

4.4.2 Testing novelty 87

4.4.3 The state of the art 87

4.4.4 Construing the claims 93

4.4.5 Comparing invention and prior art 93

4.4.6 New uses of a known thing 95

4.5 INVENTIVE STEP 98

4.5.1 Determining obviousness 99

4.5.2 The state of the art 99

4.5.3 The hypothetical technician 100

4.5.4 The relevant field 101

4.5.5 Making the comparison 102

4.6 DISCLOSURE 103

4.6.1 The specification 104

4.6.2 The claims 105

4.7 GENETIC ENGINEERING AND PATENTABILITY 106

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 4 109

5 INFRINGEMENT, VALIDITY AND REVOCATION 115

5.1 CONSTRUCTION OF CLAIMS 115

5.1.2 Non-literal infringement and the ‘pith and marrow’

doctrine 116

5.1.3 Purposive construction 118

5.1.4 Article 69 of the EPC and the Protocol 119

5.1.5 A new approach? 121

Contents

xiii

5.2 INFRINGING ACTS 122

5.2.1 Primary and secondary infringement 123

5.2.2 Contributory infringement 126

5.3 DEFENCES 126

5.3.1 Putting the validity of the patent in issue 126

5.3.2 Section 60(5) of the PA 1977 127

5.3.3 Prior use 127

5.3.4 Exhaustion 128

5.3.5 The ‘Gillette defence’ 128

5.4 REVOCATION AND OPPOSITION 129

5.4.1 Third party observations 129

5.4.2 Revocation 129

5.4.3 EPO opposition 130

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 5 131

6 BREACH OF CONFIDENCE 133

6.1 THE NATURE OF THE ACTION 133

6.2 THE CONDITIONS FOR A REMEDY 134

6.3 CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION 135

6.3.1 Information 135

6.3.2 Confidentiality 137

6.3.3 Information in the public interest 144

6.4 THE OBLIGATION OF CONFIDENCE 147

6.4.1 The direct recipient 148

6.4.2 The indirect recipient 154

6.4.3 No relationship 156

6.5 BREACH 158

6.5.1 Subconscious breach 159

6.5.2 Detriment to the plaintiff 159

Principles of Intellectual Property Law

xiv

6.5.3 Inducing breach of contract 160

6.5.4 Defences 160

6.5.5 Remedies 161

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 6 163

7 COPYRIGHT PRINCIPLES AND COPYRIGHT

WORKS 167

7.1 BASIC PRINCIPLES 167

7.1.1 A work 168

7.1.2 Fixation of a work 169

7.1.3 Originality 170

7.1.4 Reporter’s copyright 173

7.1.5 Independent creation 174

7.1.6 The idea-expression dichotomy 174

7.1.7 Overlapping copyrights 176

7.2 COPYRIGHT WORKS 176

7.3 ORIGINAL WORKS 177

7.3.1 Literary works 177

7.3.2 Dramatic works 178

7.3.3 Musical works 180

7.3.4 Artistic works 180

7.4 DERIVATIVE WORKS 185

7.4.1. Sound recordings 185

7.4.2 Films 186

7.4.3 Broadcasts 186

7.4.4 Cable programmes 187

7.4.5 Typographical arrangements of published editions 188

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 7 189