This is an interesting case from the Intellectual Property
Enterprise Court in the United Kingdom concerning field testing of
prototypes. Thank you the East Anglian Daily Times for their useful
summary. For the full written decision, you can refer to here:
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/IPEC/2021/1007.html
As stated by the patentee, Mr Claydon, this decision could have
unintended consequences.
The requirement for an invention to be patentable in the United
Kingdom (and in most other countries) include the requirement that
the invention is both novel (i.e. new) and inventive (i.e. not
obvious) over the state of the art. The state of the art, or the
"prior art" is "all matter (whether a product, a
process, information about either, or anything else) which has at
any time before the priority date of that invention been made
available to the public (whether in the United Kingdom or
elsewhere) by written or oral description, by use or in any other
way."
