UK court offers guidance on the skilled man Patent applicants in the UK have been given more guidance on what kind of knowledge a person must have before they will be deemed to be "skilled in the art". The issue is central to decisions about whether an invention is obvious or not. If it is obvious, it is not patentable.
The guidance came in a ruling made on July 28 by the UK Court of Appeal in a dispute between oil service companies Schlumberger Holdings and Electromagnetic Geoservices over the validity of EMGS' patents on the use of a controlled source electromagnetics technique to find oil and gas reservoirs below the seabed.
In determining who is skilled in the art, the Court of Appeal decided that the notional skilled team can be different for different purposes where the invention involves the marrying of different arts. It held that the marriage...