Richard Meade QC recently appeared for the defendants in a patent infringement action involving composite wound dressings.
Although the patent was held to be valid, the defendants successfully resisted the allegations of infringement. One of the integers of the relevant claim was that gel in the wound-facing layer of the dressing penetrated into holes in the inner, foam layer. The defendants’ product did not exhibit this essential part of the invention, and so did not infringe the patent. This involved looking in detail at electron microscope and CAT scan images of the defendants’ dressings.