The High Court has upheld the decision of a hearing officer of the Intellectual Property Office rejecting an employee inventor's claim for compensation for an invention assigned to his employer, on the ground that the patent had not been of outstanding benefit to the employer or, as in this case, the employer's assignee. (Shanks v Unilever plc and others [2014] EWHC 1647 (Pat), 23 May 2014.)

NOTE: On 18 January 2017, the Court of Appeal upheld the High Court’s decision (see Legal update, Court of Appeal upholds decision on employee inventor compensation under Patents Act). (See details of Practical Law IP&IT and Media & Telecoms policy on annotating case reports.)