Thursday 26 March 2009

Patent litigation reform in the UK: a response to the Burdon proposals

The April 2009 issue of Patent World (Informa, published ten times a year), carries this article by Taylor Wessing litigators Gareth Morgan and Richard Price, "Providing UK patent litigants with a real alternative". This article calls for a radical overhaul of the Patents County Court and also responds in detail to some of the suggestions made by Michael Burdon in his December 2008 article (here).

This exchange of views is unlikely to be the end of the discussion as to what form a revised patent litigation forum might take. Further developments are keenly awaited.

PatLit would like to thank Patent World for kindly agreeing to make these articles available to its readers.

1 comment:

Francis Davey said...

Interesting stuff. I am grateful to that it has been put on the web.

My understanding of the Burdon plan is that a party entitled to recover (say) 25% of its costs would recover only £25,000 not 25% of its actual cost (which could be vast) capped at £100,000. That makes excellent sense and does not encourage parties to spend unnecessarily.

If I am right about that, I think the authors have misunderstood Michael Burdon slightly.