Opinions & Revocation - Continued

Earlier this year I wrote about the first couple of Patent Office opinions under section 74A that issued under the new provisions of section 73(1A)&(1B), where the comptroller now has the option of initiating revocation if an opinion finds a patent to lack novelty or inventive step.

The question I had at the time was how the comptroller would decide where initiating revocation proceedings would be justified. The two opinions issued so far seemed to me to be fairly "clear cut" (in the words of the Office's own guidance on the matter), since both found claim 1 of the patent to lack novelty over a prior publication. I therefore expected that we should see the first action to initiate revocation shortly after the 3 months period for requesting a review expired on the first one, which was in April (no review was requested).

After a couple of months to think about it, the Patent Office has now written to the proprietor in a letter dated 12 June that states in part:

"Whilst opinion [23/14] did conclude that your patent was invalid the comptroller does not consider it appropriate to initiate revocation proceedings against your patent.  

You should note that the decision not to initiate action under section 73(1A) does not alter or set aside the conclusion in the opinion. You may still wish to amend your patent."

The opinion, which was written by a senior examiner, was quite clear in finding that claim 1 lacked novelty over a prior published Chinese utility model publication. This makes me wonder what it would take for the comptroller to decide when a case met the "clear cut" criterion. How clear cut does it have to be? There is no real further guidance in the Manual of Patent Practice, which simply states that the group Deputy Director (DD) "should consider whether action under section 73(1A) is necessary. Action under this section should only be initiated if the DD considers that the patent is clearly invalid due to lack of novelty or inventive step. The opinion should be considered but the DD is in no way bound by it". Based on this, it appears that the comptroller could decide not to take action for any reason at all, however subjective it might be. This does not sound to me like a good way to implement the new provisions.

Perhaps we will know more when a decision is made regarding the second opinion that resulted in a finding of invalidity, which should issue soon. The situation at the moment does appear to be in need of some clarification.