In a patent validity and infringement trial before Charlotte May KC sitting as a deputy High Court judge, Martin Howe KC, leading Geoff Pritchard of 3 New Square, instructed by Dehns, appeared for the claimant patentee and Lindsay Lane KC leading Beth Collett, instructed by Norton Rose Fulbright, for the defendants.
The subject matter of the patent was the use of mobile devices to read data encoded in graphic objects such as QR codes to identify or authenticate access to services. Shell’s fuel payment system using customer mobile phones which scan QR codes on or near the pumps was alleged to infringe.
The Deputy Judge held that the patent was invalid on the grounds of added matter and extension of protection as a result of a post-grant claim amendment, and obvious over an item of prior art (Schmidt). On infringement, she held that the first iteration of Shell’s payment system would infringe the claims (if valid) but the second and third iterations would not.