Berry Floor & B&Q Get Favorable Patent Ruling

Waregem, Belgium, May 31, 2006--The London Patents County Court has recently ruled in favour of Berry Floor and its customer B&Q in the courtcase that Unilin had started back in 2002 in the UK for patent infringement. Berry Floor and B&Q were previously held to have infringed Unilin’s EP 1 024 234, by the English court. The decision was however only concerned with an old product that is no longer produced by Berry Floor since 2002. The court has now made a ruling to the effect that if this patent is ultimately modified or revoked by the European Patent Office (EPO) in such a manner that there would have been no infringement from the outset, the orginal finding of infringement would no longer stand. This is because the European Patent Convention provides that a European patent is deemed never to have conferred on the patentee from the outset, national patent rights, to the extent that the patent has been revoked or amended during opposition proceedings before the EPO. Opposition proceedings before the EPO are currently still pending against this patent and are expected to be finished by the middle of next year. In view of the recent decision of the EPO on Unilins EP 0 843 763 (parent patent of EP 1 024 234), where this patent was seriously reduced in scope, Berry Floor is optimistic that the EPO will impose the same limitations on EP 1 024 234 of Unilin.