Judge Sarah Dotan of the Tel Aviv District Court has overturned appeal by Israeli Company Maytronics concerning the voiding by the Israel Patent Office of their patent for a swimming pool cleaning robot.
Meitronics filed their patent application (No. IL 0109394) back in 1994, and it issued for opposition purposes in 1997. In June 2001, the patent was voided as the result of an opposition proceedings by US company Aqua Products which opposed the patent on grounds of a lack of inventive step. The robot has real and synthetic Chamoix leather polishing wheels for polishing swimming pool tiles, and the Israel Patent Office had ruled that the combination lacks inventive step over usage of Chamoix leather or synthetic leather, since robots for this purpose were known several years earlier, and the property of Chamoix leather and its synthetic equivalents are well established.
In addition to throwing the case out, the court ruled 15,000 NIS (approx $3,300) costs against Meitronics.
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