A High Court ruling has cleared the way for patent attorney litigators to conduct litigation in High Court cases.

In what is believed to be the first judgment on the scope of patent attorney litigators’ rights, Mr Justice Lewison clarified that they are entitled to conduct cases involving disputes over licence agreements and related intellectual property rights, and are entitled to act where the case involves the broad area of ‘protecting inventions’, including royalties payable under agreements relating to the inventions.

The court found that patent attorneys are not limited to a narrow interpretation of ‘protecting inventions’, such as cases involving prosecution and enforcement of patents and related intellectual property.

The case, between technology companies Atrium and DSB, confirmed that businesses can be represented by a wider range of professional lawyers in such cases, not just solicitors or barristers.

The proceedings concerned a dispute about whether royalties were due under a worldwide technology transfer agreement in which DSB sold Atrium a bundle of technology.

Atrium’s case was conducted by a patent attorney, and the question arose as to whether he was entitled to act under the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorney regulations.

The judge ruled that the proceedings fell within article 3 of the institute’s regulations, which he said gave patent attorneys the authority to conduct ‘intellectual property litigation’.

CIPA president Alasdair Poore said that the judge had accepted that the scope of article 3 was somewhat ‘fuzzy at the edges’.

He said: ‘This is good news for companies, which can now be confident that legal experts who best understand how their technology is protected – patent attorneys – can handle court cases that involve the broad area of protecting inventions. They are clearly not restricted just to the narrower field of patents.’