In brief: Court of Appeal affirms that a patent was not of ‘outstanding benefit’ (Shanks v Unilever)

Table of contents

• Original news
• What should IP & IT lawyers take note of?
• What was this case about?
• What did the court decide?

Article summary

IP & IT analysis: Mark Daniels, patent litigation partner at Browne Jacobson, considers the case of Shanks v Unilever. Professor Shanks was employed between 1982 and 1986 by a non-trading research company within the Unilever group. In this period he invented a test device which utilized capillary action to draw sample liquids into a cavity where the testing occurred via electrodes within that cavity. This invention resulted in two European patents, one of which had particular application for blood glucose testing. Unilever were not interested in this field, so the patent family was exploited by licensing alone. This activity reaped a financial benefit assessed by the Hearing Officer at £24.5m. It was common ground that Unilever rightfully owned the patent, however Professor Shanks claimed employee compensation pursuant to section 40(1) of the Patents Act 1977 (PA 1977).