Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

Dr Duncan Kelly has just been awarded £1 million in compensation in a landmark judgement from Mr Justice Floyd in the English high court. This is the first time an employed inventor, whose invention clearly belonged to his employer, has been given a financial reward by the court, even though the right to compensation was first introduced in Section 40(1) of the Patents Act 1977.

In Kelly and Chiu v GE Healthcare, [2009] EWHC 181 (Pat), dated 11th February 2009 Floyd J determined that two families of patents had been of outstanding benefit to the employer, Amersham International, subsequently GE Healthcare. The judge decided that the benefit of the patents was of the order of £50 million, and awarded £1 million to Dr. Kelly and £500,000 to another named inventor Dr. Ray Chiu.