Phil & Ted's Most Excellent Buggy Company Limited prevails in patent dispute on baby buggies

In giving the leading judgement, Kitchin LJ (with the Chancellor of the High Court and Sir Stanley Burnton concurring) quoted HHJ Birss QC in noting that
Many obviousness arguments start from an item of prior art which differs from a claim and contend it would be obvious to modify the prior art in such a way as to remove that difference. The obviousness case over Goodbaby is of a different character. Phil & Ted's argues that if a skilled person put the disclosure into practice, without any inventive step, the resulting product would be a product within the claim. The argument is not focussed on modifying the disclosure.


1. The first relates to suspension means that allow the relative positions of the body support panels to be adjusted when switched between the seat/cot configurations. Whilst Goodbaby does not explicitly show or describe such suspension means, evidence from the skilled person indicated that, in practice, this feature must be present. At the first instance, HHJ Birss QC held that the obvious implementation (based on this evidence), would fall inside claim 1 and Kitchin LJ agreed, despite TFK’s protestations.
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Why cats don't need buggies |
Goodbaby describes an attachment point for the cot/seat to the buggy chassis, but there is no mention of reversible attachment. Both parties agreed that Goodbaby would not be a promising starting point if looking to design a product which is interchangeable with other modules.
However, evidence from the skilled person indicated that it was well known at the priority date that being able to reverse the direction of the module was a desirable characteristic in this field. The seat can be arranged to face the parent or so that the child looks forwards. Many buggies had this feature including the industry leading products, and both instances decided that the skilled person would therefore include “adapters” in the obvious implementation of Goodbaby. Kitchin LJ explained this as “the fact that a particular modification may not be obvious for one purpose matters not if it is obvious for another.” Again, TFK’s allegations of hindsight were not accepted.
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Purrrrfectly obvious to produce a Goodbaby product |
This Kat predicts that the sheer volume of CN originating prior art will lead to many a catastrophe in litigation for patentees. Many patentees will be often be unaware of CN Utility models before action, and the language barrier may hinder complete analysis.
Little in this ruling surprised this Kat. Merpel however now contemplates launching a copycat product under the brand Merpel’s Most Purrfect Buggy Company. Watch this space…