This month’s Briefing rounds up some recent patent developments in the UK courts.

In judgments published in May and July, Mr Justice Arnold ruled on the validity of three standard essential patents (SEPs) owned by Philips (Koninklijke Philips NV v Asustek Computer Incorporation & Ors [2018] EWHC 1826 (Pat)). He found two of the patents to be valid, and one invalid for obviousness. The decisions are interesting as they reveal the detailed scrutiny applied to SEPs in the English courts, and in two of the cases the outcome was different to the decision of the Dutch courts on the same patent. As two of the patents have been found to be valid, it is likely that a FRAND trial on these patents will take place in 2020.

Mr Justice Birss was called on to address the question: when can an unsuccessful party bring new evidence in a patent case? L’Oréal sought to have further experimental evidence admitted in Liqwd Inc & Anor v L'Oréal (UK) Ltd & Anor [2018] EWHC 1845 (Pat) but Birss J concluded that cases should be dealt with justly and at proportionate cost, in line with the ‘overriding objective’ in CPR, Part 1. In this case, admitting the new evidence would lead to two to three more days in court. The application was dismissed.

The Court of Appeal has recently delivered judgments on when claims for Arrow declarations can proceed to trial (Glaxo Group Ltd & Ors v Vectura Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 1496) and on the relevance of numerical ranges in patent claims (Jushi Group Co Ltd v OCV Intellectual Capital LLC [2018] EWCA Civ 1416). The Court will soon be losing its senior patent specialist, as Lord Justice Kitchin has been appointed to join the Supreme Court on 1 October.

The IP/IT Briefing is part of the Bloomsbury Law Online Service. The full briefing is available here.