Flexible Steel Lacings Company v Beltreco Ltd [2000] FCA 890

FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Flexible Steel Lacing Co v Beltreco Ltd [2000] FCA 890 PATENTS – revocation – invalidity - whether the specification is sufficiently unclear as to fail to comply with s40(3) Patents Act 1990 (Cth) – recourse to body of specification to resolve uncertainty – description and drawings of invention given "by way of example" only – inconsistencies within text and between text and drawings - mistakes in text with respect to drawings are insufficient to prove general unreliability of the drawings, absent expert evidence to that effect – both product and method claims unclear and fairly open to more than one meaning - subjective intentions of patentee should not be relied upon in determination of patent construction – ambiguity unable to be resolved by application of common sense and common knowledge of the skilled addressee – inventive step – obviousness – combination patent - commercial success or the fact that something has not been done before is not of itself proof of inventive step - whether the invention overcame recognised problems – whether this was beyond ordinary skilled designing work or mere workshop improvements – - whether substantially all of the features are evident in the prior art - whether the combination is substantially a new thing - whether the effect of amendments to the specification was the claiming of matters not previously disclosed – whether the specification describes the best method known to the applicant of performing the invention claimed – whether the invention is not useful in that the claimed advantages will only be achieved by chance

PATENTS – infringement – whether all essential integers have been taken – whether any difference is a material difference – conflicting expert evidence

WORDS AND PHRASES – sipe, "longitudinally spaced-apart", "transversely extending", "trim line", elongate, strip, sheet