Vald Pty Ltd v KangaTech Pty Ltd (No 5)

Vald Pty Ltd brought an action against KangaTech Pty Ltd for infringement of certain patents, as well as seeking a declaration of non-infringement and invalidity of the patents. The dispute involved patents relating to apparatus and a method for assessing the strength of at least one knee flexor muscle of a subject. The matter was heard in the Federal Court of Australia.

The legal issues included the construction of the claims in the patents, particularly whether the results obtained from using the apparatus and method needed to be reliable and whether the claims were limited by consistency clauses. The court also needed to determine whether the product claim was limited by the result and whether the method claim was a disguised product claim. Additionally, the court had to assess the validity of the patents, specifically whether they met the requirements of sufficiency and support, and whether there was a lack of inventive step. The court also considered whether there was infringement of the patents, particularly in relation to the device after software modifications were made.

The court found that the claims in the patents should be construed to require the results obtained from using the apparatus and method to be reliable. The court held that the consistency clauses were relevant to the construction of the claims and that the product claim was not limited by the result. The court also found that the method claim was not a disguised product claim. Regarding validity, the court held that the patents met the requirements of sufficiency and support, and there was no lack of inventive step. As for infringement, the court found that there was infringement in relation to the original device and the later device before the software modifications were made. However, the court did not find infringement in relation to the device after the software modifications were made, as the modifications were not within the scope of the claims.

The court ordered that the parties were to confer and provide an agreed form of order to the chambers of Downes J by a specified date. If the parties were unable to agree, they were to provide their proposed drafts of the order and directions to the court by a later date, accompanied by written submissions. The entry of orders was to be dealt with in accordance with Rule 39.32 of the Federal Court Rules 2011.