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ARTICLE · 19 FEBRUARY 2018

Validity - Annual Patents Review 2017

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This is the Validity chapter of Gordon Harris' Annual Patents Review 2017.

United KingdomIntellectual Property
Gordon Harris
Gordon Harris
Ailsa Carter
Ailsa Carter
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This is the Validity chapter of Gordon Harris' Annual Patents Review 2017. For the other chapters of the review, please follow the links below or download the Annual Patents Review 2017 in full.

  1. Introduction
  2. Infringement
  3. Validity
  4. Technical Matters and Procedure
  5. Competition Law, Settlement and Licensing
  6. Employee Inventor Compensation
  7. Summary and Conclusions

3. VALIDITY

(a) Common General Knowledge and the Skilled Person

Because of the importance of these items I have started, in recent years, to begin the validity section with a few cases dealing very specifically with the nature of CGK and the skilled person.

In FKB v Abbvie29, the question arose as to whether the cited prior art should be looked at on its own (including the references cited therein) or considered in combination with additional prior art found as a result of searches by Abbvie's representatives.

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