Case No. IP-2015-000205

75.The only construction of the amended claims on offer was that advanced by FDS and illustrated by Mr Brinkley’s diagram. Joa did not propose an alternative – indeed it was central to Joa’s case that the skilled person could make no sense of the amended claims, an argument on clarity which I have accepted. 76.Mr St Quintin helpfully was able to narrow the issues on novelty and inventive step further: he said that the key concept disclosed in the Patent and which now also formed part of the claims as amended, the concept that would not have occurred to the skilled person at the priority date, was the idea that the aperture in the elastic layer must be larger than the bond site (as Mr St Quintin defined it), giving rise to the annular vent.