His Honour Judge Hacon has handed down judgment in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court in the patent case Everseal Stationery Products v Document Management Solutions. The case concerned a patent for self-seal mailers that had previously been considered by His Honour Judge Birss QC in two previous judgments, dealing with ownership of the patent and a declaration of non-infringement. This time the Court looked at the validity of the patent for the first time, in the context of a claim by Everseal that 3 types of mailer manufactured by DMS infringed the patent.
The Court upheld the contentions put forward by Jonathan Hill, instructed by Mills & Reeve, on behalf of DMS that the patent was invalid because it was lacking in novelty and inventive step. It also found that Everseal had failed to prove that 2 of the mailers fell within the claims of the patent.