14 September 2015, 1 pm
CIPA Hall is packed. We have a live link-up to the EPO in The Hague, where some kindly folk are going to stage a mock oral proceedings for us to watch. Mr Roberts is chairing and I am there in case he needs anyone to blame. It is all extremely exciting. Every ten minutes or so, the live link-up becomes a dead link-up and we have to fetch Mr Mische, CIPA's IT guru, from his den full of unpatentable subject matter. Mr Mische uses his IT skills to resuscitate the link-up and the excitement resumes. Eventually I learn that the IT skills involve a green button with a picture of a telephone on. There is also a microphone that allows Mr Roberts to talk to the people in The Hague. Only we are not allowed to use the microphone all the time because of the Echo, so Mr Roberts has to keep unplugging himself. When he forgets, I unplug him. The subject matter of the patent-in-a-suit is a garden hose. It is so well claimed that it is anticipated by a device intended to keep cod steaks moist on the supermarket fish counter. The attorney in The Hague says the cod steak moisturiser would be totally unsuitable for watering a garden, on account of it being too tiny. The Primary Examiner says but you might have a tiny garden. For instance a bonsai garden. This is a difficult argument to refute. When we reach the most exciting part of the oral proceedings, which is the part where the Examining Division have decided the auxiliary requests are as rubbish as the main request, we adjourn to discuss what the attorney in The Hague should do in response. The Primary Examiner is still going on about bonsai gardens. Goaded by Mr Roberts, we decide we would like to submit an auxiliary request number 2½, instead of auxiliary request number 3 in the instructions Mr Roberts was given beforehand. He plugs himself back in to break this news to the Examining Division. They become a little flustered. I have to unplug Mr Roberts again to avoid upsetting them further. There is much talk about the dimensions of garden hoses, and bonsai gardens, and PVC, and bonsai gardens. Eventually auxiliary request 2½ is rejected for being unplugged and insufficiently bonsai-d and auxiliary request 3 is allowed. It is time to press the red button with a picture of a telephone on, and send everyone home. That went well, says Mr Roberts. For the sixth time today, I unplug him.
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