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United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions >> John Terence Crilly (Patent) [2010] UKIntelP o18210 (4 June 2010) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIntelP/2010/o18210.html Cite as: [2010] UKIntelP o18210 |
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For the whole decision click here: o18210
Summary
The applicant filed a PCT application claiming priority from an earlier application which had a filing date just less than 14 months earlier. He made a request for restoration of the right of priority under PCT rule 26bis.3 on the basis that the failure to file the PCT application within the priority period was unintentional. The applicant argued that he only became aware of the deadline for filing the PCT application after the priority period had expired because the earlier application had been filed in the name of another, non-entitled party, and had been the subject of entitlement proceedings which had not concluded until after the end of the priority period. As a result of those proceedings the applicant had been found to be entitled to be named as applicant for the earlier application. Furthermore, at the expiry of the priority period on 11 July 2009, the applicant had been under the impression that the final deadline for filing the PCT application was 16 October 2009 because that was twelve months after he had filed the first application for his invention.
On the basis of the evidence, the hearing officer found that the applicant’s failure to appreciate the consequences of a successful outcome of the entitlement proceedings had led him to delay taking any action to file the PCT application until after those proceedings had been concluded, having in his mind that the final deadline for filing the PCT application was 16 October 2009. She concluded that the failure to file the PCT application within the priority period was not unintentional because it was a consequence of his decision to delay taking any action until the entitlement proceedings were resolved. The request to restore the right of priority was therefore refused.
