Intellectual Property Enterprise Court

IP-2022-000001 - [2024] EWHC 2806 (IPEC)

Fecha: 11-Nov-2024

Section 2

54.

In cross-examination Mr Duke described his responsibility for the "important movement of the key blocks from the forward end of the top and bottom deck … back to the rear end under the forward riser. That was my choice, and I think was critical to the identity of the whole machine, because that is what established the repeating motif of the parallel structural elements. Before the key block was moved, the whole front end looked like a solid mass and did not have the beautiful juncture of the top and bottom decks parallel structural elements meeting the parallel elements of the forward risers perpendicular to each other."

55.

Responding to this answer, Mr Moss asked Mr Duke in relation to the Patent Application/US Patent:

"Q. The top and bottom were parallel in the patent, correct?

Correct. But the other difference was the bottom deck were parallel in a horizontal plane but the vertical planes were not parallel, because the bottom deck was a V-shape, because the foot board was glued with epoxy directly to the bottom deck in what is called a finger joint. So that the end of the bottom deck was as wide as the top end of the foot board. It was by moving the key blocks back that I was able to narrow the … bottom deck because it no longer had the same connection to the foot board."

56.

This change from the 'flared' v-shaped footboard (as can be seen in Figures 1 and 3 of the Patent Application) to the vertical (as well as previously horizontal) parallel planes of the Top and Bottom Decks can be seen in the below photograph of a Series 2 WaterRower. However, it can also be seen in the below photograph of the Series 1 WaterRower that this change to vertical parallel lines of the Top and Bottom Decks was present prior to the footplate being moved (i.e. prior to the move from being flush with the top of the Main Rails to being tucked down between the Main Rails). This contradicts the statement made by Mr Duke in his answer above that the reason the Bottom Deck was a v-shape was due to the connection of the foot board directly to the Bottom Deck and that it was only once the key block had been moved and the Main Rails widened with the footboard lowered that he was "able to narrow the … bottom deck".

57.

I do not believe this calls into question the credibility of Mr Duke's evidence. However, it does alter the position on the timing of the iterative change to the vertical parallel Top and Bottom Decks to the Series 1 model.