A press release was issued from Clear Focus One Way Vision (Clear Focus One Way Vision Pty Ltd) on 13 September 2012 which is characterised by false information as outlined below.
A Facebook Status Update gives the same misinformation and letters have also been written to customers of Contra Vision Supplies Ltd and distributors of their licensees with similar wording.
The purpose of this press release is to correct a number of statements made about Patent AU 697657, which in our view are misleading or deceptive.
The Facebook Status Update, letters and a Clear Focus One Way Vision press release titled “One Way Vision Patent AU697657 valid”, claim that the Patent Office has completed a long running review of the patent, that [after some 4 years] the Patent Office decided that the patent should be maintained, and that 3M Australia, who had instigated the review process, did not appeal.
The ‘review’ was in the nature of a re-examination, a procedure which takes place essentially between the Patent Office and the patentee (the patent owner). This is vastly different from the type of procedure which allows competing parties to argue their views before the Patent Office or in Court.
The patent’s claims (which define the owner’s rights) were allowed in re-examination after the previously granted claims were found to be invalid and only then after five sets of amendments. The scope of a re-examination process is, however, limited and there are many other causes of the patent’s invalidity that this limited process cannot consider.
In addition, the patent legislation does not permit 3M to appeal the outcome. The legislation does allow the filing of objections to the extensive amendments, which we have done. The Patent Office will receive evidence from each side and will consider the matter.
It would be inappropriate in this press release to outline all the reasons for invalidity. However, it is relevant to the published claims that Gregory E. Ross gave evidence at the hearing of 8 February 2012 in this re-examination that a staggered hole pattern (as typically used in perforated window film) was novel and inventive; novelty and an inventive step being fundamental underpinnings of a patent. This evidence, that asserted that a staggered hole pattern was novel and inventive, was not allowed to be contested in the re-examination, because of the limited nature of the review. We have a body of further evidence to show that, before the priority date of the patent, Ross himself introduced many perforated products into Australia that included a staggered hole pattern and all the other features that invalidate claims of this patent. Even if the Patent Office were to dismiss the objection to the amendments, we remain confident that all the claims of this patent are invalid in relation to all current and anticipated practice in the use of the Contra Vision® range of products. Furthermore, we would be happy to discuss with any party why we are so confident of our position in relation to this patent.
Contra Vision Ltd initiated the business of see-through window graphics worldwide in 1985. Contra Vision owns patents and other intellectual property covering a wide range of see-through technologies in a number of countries including Australia, for example related to the construction of perforated window films and our Overlap Registration System™ of printing non-perforated transparent substrates. Our Patent Schedule is available on our website www.contravision.com.
Contra Vision
www.contravision.com
