Claydon patents revoked after infringement dispute
18th June 2021
Following a legal dispute with Mzuri, strip tillage seed drill manufacturer, Claydon Yield-o-Meter Limited has had a UK and EU patent revoked due to ‘lack of inventiveness’ over existing prior art and ‘prior use of the invention in public’.
Claydon had alleged that Mzuri’s Pro-Til and Pro-Til Select single pass drills infringed its UK patent no. 2,400,296 and its European patent no. 2,051,576.
Mzuri maintained at trial that there was no infringement of the claimant’s patents, and argued that the patents were invalid due to lack of inventiveness over existing prior art and prior use of the invention contained in the UK patent in public.
The patents related to the configuration of inline tines for cultivating and seeding in one pass, which is a concept that Mzuri claims dates to the earliest seed drills in history.
After the three-day hearing, the Judge handed down the decision on 22nd April 2021 that the patents are to be revoked due to a combination of a lack of inventiveness over existing prior art and prior use of the invention in public.
