Element Six Loses IIa Lab Grown Patent Battle
February 22, 23
(IDEX Online) - Singapore-based IIa Technologies has won a long-running patent battle with Element Six Technologies, a De Beers company.
The Court of Appeal in Singapore ruled that Element Six's highly technical patent concerning lab grown diamond production was not sufficiently clear and was therefore unenforceable.
It said even a skilled person would not understand whether or not they had infringed it. "The patent for manufacturing synthetic diamonds is not sufficiently clear and complete," it concluded.
Element Six, based in Britain, sued IIa in 2016, alleging it had infringed two of its patents.
In February 2020 the high court ruled that one of Element Six's patents was invalid, but the second was valid and had been breached by IIa. The new ruling found that the second patent was also invalid.
IIa spokesperson Priyanka Joshi said in a LinkedIn post that the company "defended its rights to commercialize its proprietary, trade secret process for manufacturing lab grown diamonds using CVD technology, and succeeded".
Element Six "noted" the court's decision, and described it as a "very surprising outcome".
Pic shows IIa headquarters in Singapore.