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Tuesday, 02 December, 2008, 21:20 GMT | more >>

Statoil wins UK patent fight



By Upstream staff 

Statoil has won a patent hearing in the UK, with the UK Patent Office ordering the University of Southampton to transfer the patent on seabed logging (SBL) to the Norwegian producer.

The patent office upheld Statoil’s case in its entirety, ruling that the true inventors of the patent in dispute were Statoil employees at the relevant time.

Brit Ragnhildstveit, manager of Statoil's patent department, said: “Statoil brought this case on a point of principle, as we believed that our intellectual property rights had been misappropriated by a commercial partner, and this decision endorses our belief."

Statoil brought the action because the University of Southampton wrongly patented for itself the inventive concept which Statoil had devised prior to the involvement of the university. The dispute arose out of a Statoil research project in which personnel from the University of Southampton took part.

SBL exploits differences in resistivity beneath the seabed to identify hydrocarbon-bearing reservoirs with greater accuracy.


Friday, 22 July, 2005, 14:32 GMT  | last updated: Friday, 22 July, 2005, 14:32 GMT

Under dispute: SBL uses electromagnetic waves directed beneath the seabed to provide valuable data for oil exploration
 

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