Taylor Wessing, Carmelite, 50 Victoria Embankment, London, EC4Y ODX, UK, Tel: +44 (0)20 7300 7000, Email: wnstoate@taylorwessing.com

Revised 7 March 2003.

Abstract

Enforcing patents in a global market sometimes requires special techniques. In this paper, Nigel Stoate outlines the use of letters of request to gain access to evidence from overseas witnesses and how, in one particularly extreme case, extraordinary measures were used to uncover not only the infringement itself, but also the series of fraudulent attempts to conceal it.