AGA Medical Corporation v Occlutech (UK) Limited, High Court, 22 July 2014, Case No. HC11C02009, Neutral Citation Number: [2014] EWHC 2506 (Pat), with thanks to Gregor Grant, Graham Burnett-Hall and Gina Lodge, Marks&Clerk for sending in the case and a head note and summary

The Patents Court in London has held AGA’s patent for an atrial septal occluder to be invalid on the basis of anticipation and lack of inventive step.

Anticipation by first clinical trial
Occlutech asserted that the patent was anticipated by a non-confidential prior disclosure by Dr Amplatz, one of the inventors, to doctors at the Bratislava Children’s Hospital in Slovakia during the first clinical trial of the device.

AGA’s defence was two-fold: (i) the trialled devices had a different shape to the device disclosed in the patent – flat discs rather than discs “cupped towards the other” as required by claim 1 (as shown in the following drawing from the patent); and (ii) there was an implied obligation of confidence.

Read the entire summary here.

Read the decision here.