Skating on Thin Ice: The Court of Appeal Expands on the Circumstances when an Immaterial Variant may Amount to Patent Infringement.

In its decision in Icescape Ltd v Ice-World International BV, the Court of Appeal has considered for the first time the effect of the Supreme Court's decision in Actavis UK Ltd v Eli Lilly & Co on how patent claims should be construed in the context of infringement allegations. With this judgment, the Court of Appeal recognises expressly that the previous "Protocol Questions" should be abandoned and that from now on the "Actavis Questions" will be applied in order to establish infringement in a case where a variant from the claim achieves substantially the same effect in substantially the same way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]