Promptu V Sky: The Q Box And Talking Into The Void

• Published date: 27 July 2021
• Law Firm: Marks & Clerk
• Author: Mr Ian Turner

In a case reminiscent of the series of Rovi v Virgin Media cases ¹, the Sky Q box has just avoided a patent infringement claim. In Promptu v Sky ², patent infringement was alleged against the Q box voice command feature which, inter alia, raised a point about the territoriality of infringement in the modern interconnected world.

The patent at issue was found invalid for obviousness over the single piece of prior art pursued at trial. However, Mr Justice Meade considered various points of construction said by Sky to limit the patent to old coaxial cable style TV networks (the patent had a June 2000 priority date and hence suffered from the problem of not being on all fours with the way technology has rapidly advanced in this area) and a second point about the timing of sending certain data. These points of construction failed to impress the judge and on a normal interpretation the judge found for Promptu (no equivalence...