One of the authors of the inventions under Russian patents No. 2609581 and 2701230, which refer to the metallurgy of precious metals, S. Medvedev, sought the assistance of «A.Zalesov & Partners», since he had not been included in the list of applicants in the applications for the mentioned patents.
A lawsuit was filed against «IKOI» S.P.A. (the current patent owner) for the recognition of the mentioned patents invalid in the part of the indication of the author and the patent holder.
Being one of the authors of the disputed inventions, the plaintiff was not in labor relations with the applicant, hence, the inventions could not be considered as employee’s inventions. He did not assign the right of obtaining the patents to other parties as well, which is why he had the right to be included in the list of patent holders.
At the same time, an equal lawsuit was filed by the third party - D. Borovkov, who is also one of the authors of the disputed inventions and was not included in the list of patent holders as well.
It is worth noting that on October 25, 2021, the plaintiffs and the defendant concluded an agreement on the circumstances of the case and the distribution of court costs, having agreed that both D. Borovkov and S. Medvedev, as well as «IKOI» S.P.A., should be considered the patent holders.
On November 23, 2021, the Russian IP Court ruled to consider patents No. 2609581 and 2701230 invalid in the part of the indication of the plaintiffs as the patent holders and obliged Rospatent to grant new patents with the correct list of patent holders.
Attorney-in-law Aleksey Zalesov has represented the client in court. For more details about the case, please refer to the link.