Recently, Singapore's Court of Appeal (“CoA”) has allowed the appeal against the High Court's decisionon the validity of a patent held by Element Six Technologies (“Element Six”). In 2016, Element Sixcommenced proceedings in the High Court alleging that IIa Technologies (“IIa”) had infringed two of itspatents registered in Singapore. The High Court revoked one of Element Six's patents in 2020, andfound the second patent to be valid and was infringed by IIa. IIa appealed against the High Court'sdecision.
This case was a difficult one for all parties involved, including the appeal judges who asked parties toprepare a “Primer” document and conduct a “Technology Tutorial” to help them “com[e] to grips with thedifficult material”. Element Six, the company which had commenced proceedings in a bid to enforce itspatent rights against IIa and to stop IIa from using the same method to grow synthetic diamonds, didnot obtain its desired result of patent enforcement. The CoA ultimately found the second patent to benot “sufficiently clear and complete”, and ordered it to be revoked under Singapore law.
