The dispute centred on the design of aeroplane seats that fold
down into beds. Flatbed seats were introduced by British Airways in
1996 and other airlines rushed to create their own versions of the
innovation.
The seats are seen by airlines as being very important for
attracting and retaining high-paying first- and business-class
passengers. The High Court heard that Virgin Atlantic's
introduction of the flatbed seat resulted in a market-share
increase of 12% on long-haul routes.
Virgin Atlantic asked Contour to design, engineer and
manufacture the seat that it introduced in 2003. The seat won
awards and was a commercial success.
Contour later supplied a seat, called the Solar Eclipse, to Air
Canada, and Virgin Atlantic claimed that that seat infringed its
patent in its seat design and some of its design rights.
Mr Justice Lewison rejected the claim that there was wholesale
copying of Virgin Atlantic's Upper Class Suite (UCS) seat by
Contour or design consultancy Design Acumen.
He said that the Virgin Atlantic design had informed parts of
the design process, but that many elements of it were not used and
many were changed. He rejected the allegation of wholesale
copying.
Mr Justice Lewison looked at many of the elements of the new
seat's design and found that they had been independently
designed.
Virgin Atlantic had claimed an unregistered design right in the
seat, which gives it the sole right to engage in commercial
production according to that design. Mr Justice Lewison said that
because the unusual parts of the seat were independently designed,
the design right claim must fail.
Virgin Atlantic also claimed that the seat design infringed a
patent it held, which was for 'a novel seating system for a
passenger vehicle, particularly an aircraft and a seating unit for
a passenger seating system'.
The High Court said that Virgin Atlantic's patent was valid,
that the developments that it protected were not obvious in the
light of previously designed seats.
The Court found, though, that because the Air Canada seat did
not flip over to provide a flat surface for sleepers to lie on and
because that was one of the three central claims of Virgin
Atlantic's patent, the patent was not infringed.
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