Giant defeated in patent row

A patent secured by a small Welsh company has proved its worth in a four-year legal battle, it says. The Court of Appeal upheld a ruling that Corus infringed a valid patent owned by Qual-Chem, of Port Talbot, where Corus has a major steel plant (pictured). With the help of the Swansea legal firm Douglas-Jones Mercer, the Welsh company’s former managing director, Keith Harris, 70, brought the case against the company formerly known as British Steel and the latest ruling has left Corus with a liability to pay compensation and a legal bill of over £1million. CIPA member Neil Campbell whose firm, Frank B. Dehn, obtained the pPatent for Qual-Chem, says that Harris’s foresight in obtaining patent protection for his invention was the key to him winning the ‘small company versus big multinational’ case. The patent is for a manufacturing process that Qual-Chem says improved the quality and reduced the cost of producing the high-quality steel made by Corus at Port Talbot for at least four years. According to Qual-Chem, it had all its contracts cancelled in 2002, after Corus forced the small company to transfer the technology to another supplier. At the time Qual-Chem employed eight staff and managers. The loss of its main contract forced the business to close. At a previous Patents County Court hearing, Judge Michael Fysh had ruled that the family firm's patent was valid and had been infringed by Corus. Corus appealed against that decision, but High Court Judge Lord Justice Jacob agreed with the Patents County Court. Keith Harris, of Mayals, Swansea, said, "This is a huge victory for us. We're delighted by the judgment. The court below and the Court of Appeal rejected every single point made by Corus and agreed that we had invented and patented a process and that this patent had then been infringed. Had Corus won this long and complex legal fight my family would have lost everything we'd ever worked for. We’ve had tremendous support from relatives and friends and we compliment our legal team for their outstanding performance.”