EPLAW PATENT BLOG

UK – James Duncan Kelly v. GE Health Care / Employee invention

Posted: February 11th, 2009

James Duncan Kelly and Kwok Wai Chiu v. GE Health Care Limited, High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, Patents Court, 11 February 2009, Case No. [2009] EWHC 181 (Pat), with thanks to Marc Döring and Rowan Freeland, Simmons & Simmons

The English High Court has for the first time ordered an employer to pay compensation to its employee inventors. Such compensation is payable for patents filed after 1977 if the patent is of outstanding benefit to the employer. No claim has previously succeeded in the courts, although there are generally understood to have been several claims which have been settled.

Read the extended summary (provided by Rowan Freeland) here.


Read the decision (in English) here.

Leave a Reply


EPLAW c/o Simont Braun
Avenue Louise 250/10
1050 Bruxelles


EMAIL US 
Array
(
    [type] => 1
    [message] => Uncaught Exception: Template 'templates/form/web/widgets/#type.html' not found ! in /home/a5j69q2zrgin/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wysija-newsletters/helpers/render_engine.php:723
Stack trace:
#0 /home/a5j69q2zrgin/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wysija-newsletters/helpers/render_engine.php(454): WYSIJA_help_render_engine->_loadTemplate('templates/form/...')
#1 /home/a5j69q2zrgin/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wysija-newsletters/helpers/render_engine.php(169): WYSIJA_help_render_engine->_parse('\n{include file=...')
#2 /home/a5j69q2zrgin/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wysija-newsletters/helpers/form_engine.php(756): WYSIJA_help_render_engine->render(Array, 'templates/form/...')
#3 /home/a5j69q2zrgin/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wysija-newsletters/helpers/form_engine.php(638): WYSIJA_help_form_engine->render_web_body()
#4 /home/a5j69q2zrgin/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wysija-newsletters/views/front/widget_nl.php(160): WYSIJA_help_form_engine->render_web()
#5 /home/a5j69q2zrgin/public_html/wp-content/plu
    [file] => /home/a5j69q2zrgin/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wysija-newsletters/helpers/render_engine.php
    [line] => 723
)