Background

Oxford Flow Ltd designs, manufactures and sells industrial pressure regulators using innovative technology to provide new levels of performance for natural gas transmission, water distribution, oil and gas, and process industries.

Dr Mark Bell, Senior Associate at Dehns has worked with the inventors of Oxford Flow’s technology for over 10 years, through Oxford University’s Technology Transfer Office, while they were based at Oxford University, and subsequently after Oxford Flow was spun out.

Mark filed Oxford Flow’s first patent application for their first patentable invention developed after being spun out, which still forms the basis for one of their most important products. Since then, Mark has drafted and filed over a dozen patent applications for Oxford Flow and handles their ever growing patent portfolio, along with providing associated strategic advice.

Issue

In March 2020, Mark filed a PCT application for Oxford Flow’s flagship product. The national phase entry filings were then due in September 2021, but due to the importance of the product, Oxford Flow wanted us to file these applications early to secure the grant of patents in a range of different jurisdictions as soon as possible.

What we did

In November 2020, ten months earlier than normal, Mark was able to file the application in a wide range of countries and regions (Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the US and Europe). Mark also requested accelerated examination of these applications at each patent office where possible. This meant that we could respond to any objections from the relevant patent offices as soon as possible, in order to obtain the early grant of patents in these jurisdictions.

This involved co-ordination with local attorney firms in each foreign country and investigation into the various different requirements for early national phase entry and options for accelerating examination of these applications.

Outcome/result

For the Australian application, we have already received a Notice of Allowance, which means that the patent is likely to be granted in the next few months, not long after the time when we should have only just been filing the application.

This demonstrates that when required, Dehns knows how to pull all the levers to get the patent process working in our clients’ favour – great news for our clients!