Case No. IP-2016-000202

questions. 110.I do not accept Mr Chacksfield’s implied submission that a patentee must always go through each integer of his claim and the corresponding features of the accused product or process, and wherever an integer of the claim is missing from the accused product or process (or arguably missing), identify its equivalent. The Improver questions address the variant product or process as a whole. Mr Gamsa’s point was simply that if I found that the Tap Bank fell outside claim 1 on a normal construction, it was nonetheless a variant which satisfied the three revised Improver questions. 111.All integers of a claim missing from the variant will be relevant to, for instance, whether the inventive concept has been exploited by the variant in substantially the same way to achieve substantially the same result. No integer can be ignored. But since it is the variant as a whole that is considered, I do not see that a patentee is invariably required expressly to assert equivalence in relation to each integer of the claim, one by one. An accurate identification of the inventive concept may be enough to focus attention on the integers that matter. Equivalence 112.As I have said, Technetix’ argument on equivalence had to take into account missing integers (2) and (4) of claim 1. They came to the same thing: the Tap Bank has no base unit with circuitry. Consequently there is no receptor means positioned in the base unit in a signal path between the input and the group of outputs. Teleste’s argument on integer (2) also relied on the absence of an input in the base unit. But this again boiled down to the base unit of the Tap Bank lacking circuitry. The Tap Bank’s base unit is just a metal sheet to which the directional couplers and the signal outputs are attached, replaceably attached according to Mr Bailey (which I accept). 113.The starting point for an argument of equivalence is the identification of the inventive concept or core. Mr Gamsa said that it was encapsulated by integer (7): the new technical insight conveyed by the invention of claim 1 is that the directional coupler in a tap unit may be separable from and insertable into the base unit independently of the group of signal outputs. 114.Mr Chacksfield sought to put more features into the inventive concept: “Having a tap with an electrical base unit into which the trunk cable is plugged, the base unit also carrying the signal to receptors into which modular directional couplers can be inserted (and potentially with other receptors for splitter units).” 115.Characterising the inventive concept or core accurately is liable to be important to the scope of a claim. From a patentee’s perspective, the simpler the inventive concept, the more likely it is that the concept has been exploited in substantially the same way to achieve substantially the same result. From an alleged infringer’s point of view, the more detailed the inventive concept, the less likely it is that the concept has been so exploited. 116.In the present case I think Mr Gamsa was right. It was common ground that claim 1, if valid at all, depended on integer (7) for its validity. Integer (7) set out the new technical insight, if there was one. The inventive concept or core was that a directional coupler in a cable tap unit may be separable from and insertable into the base unit independently of the group of signal outputs. 117.In my view, although the base unit must contain circuitry on a normal construction of claim 1, this forms no part of the inventive concept. Putting it another way, the inventive concept may be exploited in substantially the same way to achieve substantially the same result if the base unit is a metal or wooden plate containing no circuitry. A cable tap unit is required, and it must function as such – there must be circuitry somewhere to achieve this – and of course the directional coupler must be replaceable independently of the signal outputs. But the location of the circuitry is a peripheral matter, outside the inventive concept or core. Improver