Ramset Fasteners (Aust) Pty Ltd v Advanced Building Systems Pty Ltd [1999] FCA 898

FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA Ramset Fasteners (Aust) Pty Ltd v Advanced Building Systems Pty Ltd [1999] FCA 898 PATENTS – validity – novelty – whether information in several advertisements formed an allowable "mosaic" – whether pictures in advertisements revealed an anticipation of the invention – discussion of evidence of what the advertisements would have revealed to the skilled person – discussion of the test for novelty – the role of "mechanical equivalents" in the assessment of an alleged anticipation – discussion of the distinction between anticipating material from which the existence of an integer of a combination could be inferred and material from which it could be concluded the addition of an essential integer would clearly be a good idea – inventorship – infringement – discussion of the rule that sale of a component part of a combination claim for an entire machine is not an infringement – rule that in such a case the vendor must have made himself a party to the act of infringement to be liable – discussion of participation in infringement and of inducing or procuring an infringement – combination to infringe – discussion of evidence of the procurement of an infringement – discussion of the proposition that you cannot avoid infringement by making a patented machine work a little worse and then providing a remedy – whether the "substance" of an invention had been deliberately left outside the claim – discussion of damages for infringement of a patent – measure of damages by the attribution of a reasonable royalty – prima facie measure of damages of the profit the patentee could have earned – estimation where precision is impossible – whether sale of patented combination without warning to purchaser that use might involve infringement amounted to a contravention of s 52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974. TRADE PRACTICES ACT, S 52 – whether sale of patented combination without warning to purchaser that use might involve infringement amounted to a contravention of s 52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974 - discussion of the proposition that misleading conduct need not be representational – circumstances where it was more realistic to see the conduct as misleading without resort to a representational analysis – inference from the engaging by a corporation in misleading conduct and the doing of the thing to which that conduct tended that it did have a causative effect. Patents Act 1952 (Cwth), s 100 Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cwth), s 52 Advanced Building Systems Pty Ltd v Ramset Fasteners (Aust) Pty Ltd (1993) 26 IPR 171 affirmed Advanced Building Systems Pty Ltd v Ramset Fasteners (Australia) Pty Ltd (1995) AIPC 39,188 reversed in part Ramset Fasteners (Aust) Pty Ltd v Advanced Building Systems Pty Ltd (1996) 66 FCR 151 cited Advanced Building Systems Pty Ltd v Ramset Fasteners (Aust) Pty Ltd (1998) 152 ALR 604 applied Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company v Beiersdorf (Australia) Limited (1980) 144 CLR 253 applied Martin Engineering Co v Trison Holdings Pty Ltd (1989) 14 IPR 330 referred to