Haier division scores win in global patent dispute

Flexicare infringed a breathing tube patent owned by New Zealand appliance maker Fisher & Paykel (F&P), the English High Court has ruled.

F&P, which is owned by Chinese company Haier, has filed suits against Flexicare, whose products include ventilators and breathing systems, in courts in Germany, the US, and the UK.

F&P alleges infringement of a patent covering “components for breathing circuits”, and its claims have now received the backing of the English High Court, which yesterday, December 8, found the patent to be valid and infringed.

Flexicare accepted that its products fell under the claims of the patent, but argued that the patent was obvious in light of prior art.

The UK company’s products include breathing filters which prevent the build-up of condensation or “rainout”. Rainout causes issues in breathing circuits, including the risk of the patient inhaling water, and an impact on air pressure.

One method of dealing with the problem is water traps, although these do not reduce the humidity of the gases passing through the breathing circuits.

F&P claimed that Flexicare’s methods of addressing the problem without relying only on the use of tools such as water traps infringed its patent.

In yesterday’s judgment, Justice Richard Meade rejected each of Flexicare’s obviousness attacks.

Meade said that, despite the issue of rainout being common knowledge in the industry, “no one actually thought to make the expiratory limb of a breathing circuit out of breathable materials so as to dry the exhaled gases prior to [F&P’s] patent”. This was a “powerful real-world point against obviousness”, the judge wrote.

The judge has not yet issued an order addressing the question of relief in the case, with that matter, and a potential appeal, to be adjourned for a “later hearing”.

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