This is a web site dedicated to advertising the existence of patents and patent applications, which may help patentees or patent applicants to reduce the risk of potential infringers from being able to successfully plead an “innocent infringement” defence in patent litigation.
What is an “innocent infringement” defence?
An innocent infringement defence, or more correctly, immunity from an award of damages, sometimes arises under UK law where the alleged infringer can prove that “…at the date of the infringement he was not aware, and had no reasonable grounds for supposing, that the patent existed…”.
Are there any exceptions to this defence?
Yes –
What should patentees do?
It is recommended to mark products to which a patent or a patent application relates with the patent /application number.
What about very small products or products with lots of patents/applications?
If there is insufficient space on the product or its packaging, or if it is impractical to display all of the relevant patent/application numbers, then it is permissible to use a “…a relevant internet link accompanying the the word or words in question…”. The internet link must be “…accessible to the public free of charge…” and must also “…clearly associate the product with the number of the patent…”
What is the recommended format of the URL and target site content?
We recommend that patentees or patent applicants display a URL in a format that uses the word “patent” or patented”, such as “www.yourdomain.com/patent”.
That target URL should display a list of the patented products and their associated patent and/or patent application numbers. Ideally, you may also wish to consider providing a product image and a hyperlink to, for example, espacenet, from where a copy of the published patent or patent application can be viewed and/or downloaded. These are just our suggestions.
What if space is really tight, or if we don’t have a web site?
Hutchinson IP Ltd provides an advertising service (this web site), via which patentees or patent applicants can advertise their patents using one of several generic/short-
patent-
patent-
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How can we get Hutchinson IP to advertise our patents?
If you would like to use this facility yourself, please contact Hutchinson IP Ltd via this e-
If you need any advice or representation in relation to Intellectual Property, and in particular, in relation to patents or registered designs in the United Kingdom, Europe or elsewhere, please visit our main web site: www.hutchinsonip.com.