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The UK Patently Leads the World of Innovation
As a nation renowned for its natural inventiveness, it is perhaps no surprise
that the United Kingdom has the longest continuous patent tradition in the
world...
[T]oday,in an increasingly global economy, Britain's Patent Office has become an indispensable centre not only for inventors and innovators in the UK but also for companies and individuals worldwide as they strive to develop and exploit new types of intellectual property...
Mandy Haberman, winner of the British Female Inventor of the Year Award
1998, said: "The Patent Office website is a vital resource to anybody with a
new idea, offering information and advice on how to protect their invention
and make the most of it. The new site has made access to this information
even easier."...
Read the article in full here>>
By John Hutchinson 2001
Top UK Female Inventor, Mandy Haberman To Be Keynote Speaker At Danish Patent & Trademark Office Conference
Mandy Haberman, British Female Inventor of the Year 2000, inventor of the non-drip baby feeding valve and creator of the world famous best selling Anywayup Cup, has been invited to address one of Europe's most important international annual Patent & Trademark events, hosted by the Danish Patent & Trademark Office in Copenhagen on May 14th, 2002.
She is the guest of the Danish Patent & Trademark office and will talk about her successful mammoth legal battle to protect all of her Intellectual Property rights invested in her revolutionary Anywayup Cup against patent infringement by large multinational Jackel International PLC...
www.legal-uk.co.uk - 17 May 2002
Mandy Haberman To Sit On Intellectual Property Court Committee
The Intellectual Property Court has invited Hertfordshire based Mandy Haberman to sit on its new IP Court User Group Advisory Committee to examine the possibility of devising chepaer procedures for Intellectual Property court cases - particularly where the parties in dispute requested it or the court itself directed it. The recommendations of this User Group Advisory Committee would then, if implemented, go someway to reducing the cost of Intellectual Property litigation in the UK.
The Intellectual Property Court has a Users Group chaired by Robin Jacob who is one of the High Court Patent Judges in the UK. The group are to examine the possibility of devising a cheaper procedure for IP cases...
Mandy Haberman has been specifically approached to sit on the Committee because of her background and experience in campaigning for the Intellectual Property rights of small inventors and businesses. As someone who has had to battle in the courts to successfully defend her IP rights around the globe, Mandy has met many inventors and companies who have not been as lucky as she has through no fault of their own.
www.legal-uk.co.uk - 17 May 2002
Not child's play
Mandy Haberman thought her patent for a self-sealing child's training cup guaranteed mass-market exploitation of her invention. Suing a competitor for infringement was a baptism of fire.
Read the article in full here>>
Also available in Spanish here>>
Innovation & Technology Transfer - The newsletter of the Innovation and SMEs Programme - January 2002
Top Inventor Offers Advice to Start-up Innovation Entrepreneurs
One of Britain's top inventors will be passing on key advice for entrepreneurs who want to start a successful business from their invention.
Mandy Haberman...will be talking at a public seminar on 16 October at the EPIDOS & PATINNOVA patents and innovation conference held at the Cardiff International Arena...
Read it in full here>>
Pressbox.co.uk - 8 October 2001
The Inventor's Tale
Mandy Haberman delivers 'The Inventor's Tale' speech to a packed house at PATLIB 2001 and receives standing ovation.
Read the full article in French here>>
PATLIB 2001
British Business needs to improve its understanding of Intellectual Property
Tim Roberts - Newly elected CIPA President - May 2001
'Managers & Managing: European Inventors Push for Changes To Patent System - Convoluted Application Process Is Said to Stifle Innovation'
The Continent's convoluted process for registering patents stifles innovation and leaves inventors at a competitive disadvantage to the U.S. Patents in Europe are hard to enforce, take too long to obtain and are too expensive, the inventors complain. Yet governments resist change.
"Litigation forms a major part of the small inventor's life" in Europe, Haberman says. "Until the system is improved, industry will continue to suffer."
Matthew Newman, Dow Jones Newswires - May 5, 2001
A Question of Invention
People who believe their inventions are being ripped off by big name companies are joining forces to fight for their rights...
Watching a toddler swinging his beaker around and spilling his drink prompted Mandy Haberman to invent the Anywayup Cup. After years of development it went on sale and was an instant success.
Eighteen months later, one of the big UK companies, which had seen a prototype, brought out a similar product. The only way to protect the invention was to take legal action.
Read it in full here>>
Today - BBC Radio 4
The AnyWayUp Cup a Case Study
Product and patent information.
More here>>
Association of Hungarian Inventors (MAFE)
Patent Office Comment
As a nation we need to keep spurring new people on to invent products. With competitions like this we can show young women how worthwhile it is to be innovative and how it also pays to protect your ideas.
Geoff Sargant of The Patent Office - October 2000
Professional Family Woman's Network Comment
Women need more recognition for the roles they play in innovation, not just inventing products used mainly by women, but a whole range of inventions.
Bola Olabisi of the Professional Family Woman's Network - October 2000
Court Case Comment
'At a time when the Government is stressing the importance of innovation and individual enterprise, it is vital the resulting creativity is adequately safeguarded if an inventive culture is to be maintained in the UK.'
Mandy Haberman's representative Margaret Tofalides at the outcome of the Jackel International case
English Private Inventor Wins Patent Infringement Suit
This is the story of a successful individual inventor, how she came to make her invention, what the reaction of the industry initially was, and how she triumphed in the marketplace and (up to now) in the courts.
Mrs. Mandy Haberman had a degree in graphic design from St Martin's School of Art and subsequently worked in the field of adult literacy. In 1982, she had a baby who suffered from severe feeding problems and could not suck from a bottle. She was dissatisfied with the equipment that was available to deal with the problem, and developed a special feeding bottle called the normal Haberman Feeder* which is the subject of UK Patent 2169210 and is now marketed world-wide.
By the early 1990's although the idea of making a leak-proof trainer cup was known to manufacturers, nobody had come up with a design that was completely satisfactory. In the summer of 1990, Mandy Haberman visited the home of another parent and watched that parent's child drinking from a trainer cup. Her friend was desperately trying to get the milk into the baby and stop the milk getting onto the floor. As a result, Mandy decided that she could design a better product, and in particular a trainer cup that would not leak.
Once she had finalized her prototype, she offered it for licence to 18 companies, mostly British, concerned with the manufacture of products for infants, but they declined to take a licence. Amongst the companies approached were the defendants in the present infringement proceedings, Jackel International Limited.
"Mr Llwelyn-Jones decided to send a cup, filled with a highly coloured fruit drink, Ribena, to the buyer at Tesco's in a box without internal packing so that the cup rolled about inside the box. He sent the box by post. Inside he enclosed a letter in which he said that if the contents had leaked he had shot himself in the foot. Apparently the contents did not leak..." During a follow-up interview, Tesco's buyer took only 10 minutes to decide to buy the Anywayup* Cup.
In August 1996, a US company called The First Years Incorporated approached Mandy for a licence, and they are now her exclusive US licensee, selling trainer cups under the name Tumble Mates.
The opinion of Mr. Justice Laddie is of legal interest because of the way in which he sought to decide between the evidence of experts in the field employed by the opposing parties, both of whom put forward reasonably held but conflicting opinions. It could be difficult to resolve the conflict created by such evidence because:
"...A problem with evidence from an expert is that he addresses the prior art and the patented development from his own unique standpoint. An expert with the relevant expertise who thinks that the development would have been obvious at the priority date may be right or he may just have greater insight than the notional uninventive man in the art. Likewise an expert who thinks that the development is inventive may be right or may have a more constricted insight..."
Laddie J. accepted that the defendants had put forward a strong case of lack of inventive step, but went on to conclude that the key question was:
"Does it reflect what an ordinary man in the art, steeped in the folklore, perceptions and prejudices of the trade would have done?
He then went on to produce a systematic list of the matters that were of value in determining whether an invention was obvious or not:
(a) What was the problem that the patented development addressed?
(b) How long had that problem existed?
(c) How significant was the problem seen to be?
(d) How widely known was the problem and how many were likely to be seeking a solution?
(e) What prior art would have been likely to be known to all or most of those who would have been expected to be involved in finding a solution?
(f) What other solutions were put forward in the period leading up to the patentee's development?
(g) Were there factors that would have held back the exploitation of the solution, even if it was technically obvious?
(h) How well has the patentee's development been received? Once the product or process was commercialized was it a commercial success?
(i) Was all or much of the commercial success due to the technical merit of the development - i.e. because it solves the problem?
In the present case, there was no dispute about the problem that Mandy's patent sought to solve, nor was it disputed that the problem had existed for a long time. The evidence established that numerous solutions to the problem had been put forward, but that they were all complicated.
"These efforts should be set against the simplicity of what Mrs. Haberman suggested. All the raw materials were readily available. The simplest of valves, used frequently in the same trade, could be used to make a product which had all the virtues which anyone designing a product would wish to achieve. The advantages of such a design would have been immediately apparent, once it was thought of. There was nothing holding anyone back...
...On the evidence before me, I accept that the Anywayup cup has been far more successful than the plaintiffs could reasonably have hoped. I also accept that this was almost entirely due to the inclusion within it of the simple slit valve.
...Mrs. Haberman has taken a very small and simple step, but it appears to me to be a step which any one of the many people in the trade could have taken at any time over at least the preceding ten years or more. In view of the obvious benefits which would flow from it, I have come to the conclusion that had it really been obvious to those in the art it would have been found by others earlier, and possibly much earlier. It was there under their very noses. As it was it fell to a comparative outsider to see it. It is not obvious..."
Based on the above findings Mandy's patent was held to be valid and infringed.
Paul Cole,Patent Cafe Magazine - www.patentcafe.com
*Haberman, Haberman Feeder Anyware and Anywayup are registered trade marks.
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