Construction Of A Patent About Aircraft Seats Is Overturned By Court Of Appeal

The High Court (Arnold J) had summarily dismissed a claim for patent infringement brought by Virgin. Basically, the judge had decided that a claim in a patent which referred to "a passenger seating system for an aircraft" was limited to a plurality of seat units (a ship-set) assembled and arranged on an aircraft. The airline who had been sued for patent infringement, Delta, never assembled seats into an aircraft in the United Kingdom. Because of the way he had construed the patent claim, Arnold J therefore concluded that Delta did not infringe the patent.

Giving the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Virgin v Delta [2011] EWCA Civ 162, 23rd February 2011, Jacob LJ overturned the High Court decision. In his view the claim was not limited to a ship-set fitted into an aircraft.

"Accordingly I think the construction of system for an aircraft...