Patents Case Study

Our client wished to protect the grinding arrangement of their new coffee grinder. We discussed the various features of the grinding arrangement and decided that the grinding arrangement included two separate inventions. One of these two inventions was considered to be the “primary” concept and the other was considered to be less important commercially. Both inventions were covered by a single patent application.

As the client wished to secure a relatively broad geographic scope of protection for their concept, we filed a PCT patent application which covered both the primary and secondary concepts. The PCT patent application was converted into national patent applications in the countries of commercial interest to the client.

We secured grant of the European patent relatively quickly, which allowed the client to claim tax relief under the HMRC Patent Box provisions. The client was able to save several hundred thousand pounds in corporation tax as a result of being able to use the Patent Box provisions.