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Mathys & Squire is delighted to have been recognised in JUVE Patent’s UK rankings 2021. Now in its second year, the guide brings together UK patent practices, solicitors and barristers with leading reputations in the UK patent law market.

Despite the challenging events that took place in 2020 (the global coronavirus pandemic, Brexit and the UK’s withdrawal from the UPC agreement to name just a few), JUVE Patent’s research has shown that ‘the UK’s patent lawyers have held on tight’ and that the ‘market remains more or less stable’, in the face of adversity.

For the second year, Mathys & Squire has been featured as a recommended firm in the category of Patent Filing – specifically in the fields of pharma and biotechnology; medical technology; chemistry; digital communication and computer technology; electronics; and mechanics, process and mechanical engineering.

Partner Chris Hamer has received a specialist Leading Individual ranking in this year’s guide, one of only 10 UK patent attorneys noted for their technical speciality – see here.

Chris Hamer and Jane Clark have retained their Recommended Individual status for a second year for their expertise in ‘Chemistry’ and ‘Digital communication & computer technology/mechanics, process and mechanical engineering’ respectively, while Hazel Ford and Philippa Griffin have been newly awarded rankings in the 2021 guide as Recommended Individuals in the fields of ‘Pharma and biotechnology’.

To see the JUVE Patent UK rankings for 2021 in full, please click here.

Just two months after the UK Supreme Court’s decision (as reported here) which held that a UK court has the jurisdiction to set global SEP rates, the Shenzhen Intermediate Court made the first decision ever (Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corporation, Ltd v Sharp Corporation) to confirm a Chinese court’s jurisdiction to determine global FRAND rates for SEPs.

Background

Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp., Ltd (Oppo) is a Chinese company specialising in electronic and mobile communication products such as smartphones, audio devices and power banks. Sharp Corporation (Sharp) is a Japanese corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products. In the latest 5G patent report released by IPLytics, both Sharp and OPPO ranked as top patent owners of 5G patents (as one indicator of leadership in the telecoms industry) and Oppo was described as a company ‘newly entered into the market’.

Back in October 2018, Sharp sent Oppo a list that included a large number of SEP patents that Sharp was willing to license to Oppo. Oppo and Sharp then started licensing negotiations in February 2019. During the negotiations, Sharp filed patent infringement lawsuits against Oppo in both Japan and Germany for infringing its 4G/LTE patents.

The case

In March 2020, Oppo filed the first instance case against Sharp at the Shenzhen Intermediate Court for:  

  1. Sharp’s breach of FRAND terms during the licensing negotiation, including ‘coercing Oppo into negotiation using infringement injunctions, overpricing and unreasonably delaying the negotiation’;
  2. global SEP rates of Sharp’s 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi SEP portfolio; and
  3. a compensation of 3 million RMB (350,000 GBP) for the breach of FRAND terms from Sharp.

The decision

Sharp raised an objection to the Shenzhen Intermediate Court’s jurisdiction over this SEP licensing dispute, arguing that the case should be dealt by a Japan Court, and that the global SEP rates for Sharp’s 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi SEP portfolio is beyond the jurisdiction of the Shenzhen Intermediate Court. The Shenzhen Intermediate Court made a decision in respect of Sharp’s jurisdiction objection in October 2020, as follows:

Whether a Chinese court has jurisdiction over the case

In light of the fact that an SEP licensing dispute is neither a typical contract dispute nor a typical infringement dispute, the Shenzhen Intermediate Court considered a few factors to determine the jurisdiction, such as whether the implementation of the patent or the performance of the contract, is within the territory of China – i.e. whether the SEP licensing dispute is properly connected with China. If one of such actions is within the territory of China, the case shall be deemed to have a proper connection with China and the Chinese court shall have jurisdiction over the case.

In the present case, the plaintiff Oppo is a Chinese company and its production, research and development take place in China. The defendant Sharp is the patentee of the Chinese patents and has property interests in China. Therefore, the court held that the case is properly connected with China and the Chinese court thus has jurisdiction over the case.

Whether the Chinese SEP rates should be separated from the global SEP rates

The court first pointed out that evidently, the previous licensing negotiation between the two parties concerned the global SEP rates of Sharp’s 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi SEP portfolio.

Secondly, the court held that global SEP rates will improve the overall efficiency by solving the dispute between the two parties fundamentally and avoiding multiple litigations in different countries – and therefore such global SEP rates are in line with the intent of FRAND terms and should not be separated from the Chinese SEP rates.

Conclusion

This might be one of the first cases worldwide that involves setting global rates for Wi-Fi SEPs.  The consideration of global SEP rates has thus expanded from cellular networks such as 3G and 4G to WLAN.

Perhaps more importantly, this decision holds that a Chinese court is competent to hear issues relating to the setting of global FRAND rates for SEP patents, much like the UK Supreme Court recently held that it was competent to decide on the setting of global FRAND rates for SEP patents.  However, this first instance decision was ruled by an intermediate court in China.  Therefore, the decision may be appealed, and it will be interesting to see whether this decision will be upheld by the Chinese Supreme People’s Court.

The EPO’s Technical Board of Appeal 3.3.01 in recent decision T421/14 (and related decision T799/16) has provided guidance on when the requirements of sufficiency are met for claims directed to a second (or further) medical use of a known product – in particular where the therapeutic effect is only achieved in a subpopulation of responders and not the patient population as a whole. The decision confirmed that the existence of a group of non-responders does not result in a lack of sufficiency for claims directed to a general population and that the group of non-responders does not need to be excluded.

Established EPO case law for second medical use claims states that the attainment of the claimed therapeutic effect is a functional technical feature of such claims. To meet the requirements of sufficiency, the therapeutic efficacy of the composition and dosage regimen for the claimed indication must be credible. EPO case law has also established that the presence of a non-working embodiment is acceptable, as long as the specification contains information on the criteria needed to identify the working embodiments. Against this background, decision T421/14 considers the issue of sufficiency in a situation where the claim is directed to a general population of patients but encompasses a large group of non-responders.

The claims in question related to a dosage regime comprising aminopyridine for increasing walking speed in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. MS, like many other diseases, shows a wide variability in pathology which results in only a proportion of patients responding to treatments. The application as filed acknowledged that it was known that only a proportion of patients, estimated to be about one third, responded to treatment with aminopyridine.

The opponent argued that the data within the patent did not demonstrate a therapeutic effect across the full scope of the claims due to the large proportion of the patient population treated being ‘non-responders’. Since the claims did not specify a step of initially identifying a patient as either a responder or non-responder, the opponent argued that the claim scope was incommensurately broad because it encompassed the treatment of patients not responding to the claimed treatment.

The Board of Appeal did not agree with the opponent’s position and stated that “the existence of non-responders is not a reason to deny sufficiency of disclosure” and that non-responders do not have to be excluded or disclaimed. The Board of Appeal also acknowledged that the existence of non-responders is “a common phenomenon which is observed with drugs in many treatment areas” and that it is common practice to treat patients with a drug and change their medication if they do not respond to treatment.

The Board of Appeal held that the criterion of sufficiency of disclosure is met if it can be shown that a relevant proportion of patients benefits from a treatment and that it has acceptable safety, since in these circumstances the skilled person in the art has the necessary technical information to perform the treatment. As the Board notes, the existence of non-responders is a common phenomenon, and innovators will therefore be reassured that in general this does not preclude a second medical use patent from being obtained. Questions remain regarding the requirement that a ‘relevant proportion’ of patients must benefit from the treatment, but it is interesting to note that the Board found that this requirement was met even when only a minority of patients were responders.

Today, 25 November 2020, the EU Commission published a new intellectual property action plan.  The action plan, touted as “an intellectual property action plan to support the EU’s recovery and resilience” outlines possible future moves, noting that intangible assets are “the cornerstone of today’s economy”, with IPR-intensive industries generating 29.2% (63 million) of all jobs in the EU during the period 2014-2016, and contributing 45% of the total economic activity (GDP) in the EU worth €6 trillion.

The action plan also notes that the quality of patents granted in Europe is among the highest in the world, and that European innovators are frontrunners in green technologies, and leaders in specific digital technologies, such as connectivity technologies.  That being said, the action plan notes that while smart intellectual property (IP) strategies can act as a catalyst for growth, European innovators and creators often fail to grasp the benefits of IP.

The action plan indicates that the Commission is willing to take stronger measures to protect European IP, to increase IP protection amongst European SMEs and to help European companies capitalise on their inventions and creations.

Ambitiously, the action plan also notes that the EU aspires “to be a norm-setter, not a norm-taker” and is keen to seek ambitious IP chapters with high standards of protection in the context of Free Trade Agreements, to help promote a global level playing field.

We summarise some of the key takeaways here.

Unified Patent (UP)

The implementation of the Unified Patent is seen as a priority in the action plan, indicating that it will reduce fragmentation and complexity, and will reduce costs for participants, as well as bridging “the gap between the cost of patent protection in Europe when compared with the US, Japan and other countries”. The action plan also indicates that it will “foster investment in R&D and facilitate the transfer of knowledge across the Single Market”.

SEP licensing

With the introduction of 5G and beyond, the number of standard essential patents (SEPs), as well as the number of SEP holders and implementers, is increasing (for instance, there are over 95,000 unique patents and patent applications supporting 5G).  The action plan notes that many of the new players are not familiar with SEP licensing, but will need to enter into SEP arrangements, and that this is particularly challenging for smaller businesses.

One area that has garnered a lot of press attention recently relating to the licensing of SEPs, and in particular to businesses that are perhaps not as familiar with SEP licensing, is that of the automotive sector.  The action plan acknowledges this and notes that “although currently the biggest disputes seem to occur in the automotive sector, they may extend further as SEP licensing is relevant also in the health, energy, smart manufacturing, digital and electronics ecosystems.”

To this end, the Commission is considering reforms to further “clarify and improve” the framework governing the declaration, licensing and enforcement of SEPs.  This includes potentially creating an independent system of third-party essentiality checks, and follows off the back of a pilot study for essentiality assessments of Standards Essential Patents and a landscape study of potentially essential patents disclosed to ETSI also published alongside the action plan.

Modernising EU design protection

The Commission has indicated that it wants to “modernise” EU design protection “to better reflect the important role design-intensive industries play in the EU economy”.  At present, the Commission is asking for stakeholder feedback on the options for future reform. Recent results of an EU evaluation show that the current legislation works well overall and is still broadly fit for purpose. However, the evaluation has also revealed a number of shortcomings, including the fact that design protection is not yet fully “adapted to the digital age” and lacks clarity and robustness in terms of eligible subject matter, scope of rights conferred and their limitations. The Commission also considers that it further involves partly outdated or overly complicated procedures, inappropriate fee levels and fee structure, lack of coherence of the procedural rules at Union and national level, and an incomplete single market for spare parts.

Updating the SPC system

While the Commission notes that, following an evaluation, the Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC) framework finds that the EU SPC Regulations “appear to effectively support research on new active ingredient, and thus remain largely fit for purpose”, it believes the EU SPC regime could be strengthened to reduce red tape, improve legal certainty and reduce costs for business.  One option being touted is to introduce a centralised (‘unified’) grant procedure, under which a single application would be subjected to a single examination that, if positive, would result in the granting of national SPCs for each of the Member States designated in the application. The creation of a unitary SPC, complementing the future unitary patent, is listed as another option.

Patent pooling in times of crisis

The EU Commission notes how the pandemic has highlighted the importance of effective IP rules and tools to boost innovation and secure fast deployment of critical innovations and technologies, both in Europe and across the globe, but that it sees a need to improve the tools in place to cope with crisis situations. To this end, the action plan includes proposals to introduce possible mechanisms for rapid voluntary IP pooling and better coordination if compulsory licensing is to be used.

Increasing access for SMEs to IP protection and the introduction of an “IP voucher”

The action plan notes that only 9% of EU SMEs have registered IP rights.  It aims to help SMEs better manage their IP and improve their competitiveness by giving EU SMEs easier access to information and advice on IP. Through the EU’s public funding programmes and further rolled-out at a national level, EU SMEs will get financial aid to finance so-called IP scans (comprehensive, initial, strategic and professional advice on the added value of IP for the individual SME’s business), as well as certain costs related to IP filings.

This will happen through the implementation of an “IP voucher”, which is made available in co-operation with the EUIPO, providing co-funding of up to €1,500 for:

SMEs will be able to apply as of mid-January for the IP voucher, through a dedicated website. We understand that the voucher will be provided on a “first come first served” basis.

The action plan also indicates the EU Commission’s intention to make it easier for SMEs to leverage their IP when trying to get access to finance, and that this may be done for example through the use of IP valuations.

EU toolbox against counterfeiting

The EU commission notes that counterfeiting is still a major problem for European businesses and proposes that an “EU toolbox” is set up to set out a co-ordinated European approach on counterfeiting.  The goal of this EU toolbox should be to specify principles for how rights holders, intermediaries and law enforcement authorities should act, co-operate and share data.

AI and blockchain technologies

The action plan notes that in the current digital revolution, there needs to be a reflection on how and what is to be protected – perhaps a nod to the recent litigation we have seen regarding whether an AI can be considered as an inventor.  The action plan in particular notes that questions need to be answered as to whether, and what protection should be given to, products created with the help of AI technologies.  A distinction is made between inventions and creations generated with the help of AI and the ones solely created by AI.  The action plan notes that the EU Commission’s view is that AI systems should not be treated as authors or inventors, which is the approach taken by the EPO, but that harmonisation gaps and room for improvement remain and the EU Commission has indicated that it intends to engage in stakeholder discussions in this respect.

Conclusion

There is much to take in from the action plan, and we will closely monitor developments in all of the above areas to see what will be implemented and when.

This article was published in Global Banking & Finance Review in December 2020.

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Robin Richardson as associate to our trade mark practice, bringing the team headcount to a record high of 13 (made up of attorneys and paralegals), across our London, Birmingham and Manchester offices.

Robin is an attorney of the High Court of South Africa, a qualified trade mark attorney and soon to be UK qualified solicitor. He has several years of experience in trade mark, domain name and copyright protection, working with clients ranging from large multinationals through to newly formed startup companies. Robin has filed and prosecuted trade mark applications in the UK, EU, Africa and worldwide. He is an accredited domain name adjudicator with the South African Institute of Intellectual Property Law and settled a number of disputes before moving to the UK in 2018.

Robin obtained a B.SocSci and L.LB (Law) from the University of Cape Town and a Masters of Law, specialising in Intellectual Property Law from Queen’s University in Canada. Robin is a Fellow of the South African Institute of Intellectual Property Law and a South African-qualified trade mark practitioner.

After beginning his career with KISCH IP in South Africa where he worked for several years, Robin then joined Womble Bond Dickinson (UK) LLP, based in their Leeds office, in 2018.

Commenting on his appointment, partner and co-head of the Mathys & Squire trade mark team, Gary Johnston, said: “We are delighted to welcome Robin to the firm as our trade mark practice grows. His extensive trade mark skills and international experience will further augment the capabilities of our trade mark practice. Robin has a strong passion for solving domain name, trade mark, copyright and internet based legal issues which will add to our offering to clients. He will be a great asset to the firm.”

Robin Richardson added: “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to be working with the highly regarded team at Mathys & Squire. I share with them the same values and level of client service. I look forward to working with the firm, its innovative clients and contributing to the firm’s continued growth and development.”

This release has been published in World Trademark Review and Intellectual Property Magazine.

The EPO Board of Appeal has now issued its written decision in T 844/18 confirming the revocation of EP-B-2771468, an important CRISPR patent belonging to the Broad Institute, MIT and Harvard. The case was being widely followed due to the priority entitlement issues it raised. James Wilding and Alex Elder of Mathys & Squire represented one of the opponents.

The hearing was covered in our earlier news item here. To recap, the case turned on the issue of ‘same applicant’ priority. The PCT request for the application from which the patent derived had not included all of the applicants for the US provisional applications from which priority was claimed or their successors in title. The proprietors argued that this did not matter, because:

At the hearing, the Board rejected all three arguments, consistent with established EPO case law and practice. With the written decision, we know the Board’s reasons:

In relation to the first argument, the Board concluded that the EPO’s power to assess ‘same applicant’ priority derives from the European Patent Convention (EPC): “Article 87(1) EPC clearly sets out a requirement that the EPO examines the ‘who’ issue of priority entitlement”.  The Board rejected the proprietors’ analogy between the determination of entitlement disputes, which the EPO is not empowered to do, and the assessment of ‘same applicant’ priority, which the Board confirmed to be a formal assessment and not substantive. 

In relation to the second argument, the Board firmly endorsed the current approach of the EPO, according to which all of the applicants named on a priority application, or their successors in title, must be named on the later European filing in order to introduce priority rights. Article 4A(1) of the Paris Convention and Article 87(1) EPC provide that ‘any person’ who has duly filed an application for a patent enjoys the right of priority, or their successor in title.  The Board accepted that the ordinary meaning of ‘any person’ was ambiguous, but found support for the ‘all applicants’ interpretation in the authentic French text of the Paris Convention, in the object and purpose of the Paris Convention, and in the “many decades of EPO and national practice”. The Board further concluded that the bar to overturning the long-established case law and practice “should be very high because of the disruptive effects a change may have.” Those disruptive effects include the potential proliferation of priority-claiming applications and a significant shift in the prior art landscape.

In relation to the third argument, the Board held that it is the Paris Convention that determines who the ‘any person’ is who duly filed a priority application and who therefore holds priority rights. According to the Board, that person is simply “the person or persons who carried out the act of filing”, this requiring a formal assessment without regard to inventorship – consistent with earlier EPO case law.  Accordingly, it was the unity of all of the applicants named on the US provisional applications who held priority rights, irrespective of inventive contribution.

In firmly rejecting the proprietors’ three arguments, the Board has maintained the status quo. Perhaps to underscore the point that ‘nothing has changed’, the decision has been coded for non-distribution to other Boards and it will not be published in the Official Journal of the EPO, notwithstanding the attention the case has drawn and the issuance of an EPO press communiqué (published today, 6 November) announcing the written decision. Whether the decision has a significant impact remains to be seen: the question of EPO power to assess legal entitlement to priority is pending in other appeals. 

This article was published in The Patent Lawyer Magazine in November 2020.

As covered in our previous article (read the summary here), in September 2020 the LG München I (District Court of Munich I) decided in favour of Nokia in a preliminary injunction against Lenovo, in which the SEP case related to a video standard (H.264 – also known as MPEG-4 part 10), which Lenovo uses in its laptops and PCs.

Shortly after Lenovo appealed the decision against it having to remove the concerned products from its German website, the OLG Munich (Munich Higher Regional Court) made an unexpectedly quick decision on the appeal, and has now stopped the enforcement of the interim injunction. Lenovo’s products can now be ordered again on the company’s homepage.

In the present case (21 O 13026/19), the Court of Appeal has based its decision on the high probability that the patent in dispute lacks legal validity. In the German patent infringement system, the validity of the patent is not examined by the infringement court, but by the Federal Patent Court in a separate procedure (bifurcation). The infringement courts, however, have the possibility to suspend their proceedings if it is highly likely that the patent in dispute lacks legal validity. In the present case, the OLG has thus justified the revocation of the first instance ruling.

The decision of the OLG Munich suspends the preliminary injunction of the LG München, but on the basis of procedural grounds. It remains to be seen whether the Court of Appeal, in its written reasoning, makes further statements in the context of an orbiter dictum, which deals with the application of the FRAND criteria by the court of first instance.

Towards the end of September 2020, the LG München I (District Court of Munich I) decided in favour of Nokia on a preliminary injunction against Lenovo. The subject matter was an SEP case relating to a video standard (H.264 – also known as MPEG-4 part 10), which Lenovo uses in its laptops and PCs. After payment of the security deposit, which was set at €3.25 million by the LG München, Nokia has now enforced the decision and thereby stopped Lenovo from selling the respective products in Germany. The tech company has also had to remove the products concerned from its German website. Lenovo has already announced that it will not accept this decision and has appealed.

This infringement is only a minor issue in the present decision, while the focus is on the application of the FRAND criteria as established by the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) in Huawei v ZTE. The Munich Court found that Lenovo’s efforts to reach a licence agreement were not sufficient within the meaning of the FRAND criteria. In the present case, the communication between the parties appears to have taken place in principle without significant delay, but without reaching an agreement on the monetary side of the FRAND conditions.

In doing so, the Munich Regional Court is following the guidance of the Federal Court of Justice in Sisvel v Haier (K ZR 36/17). Perhaps surprising is the low security deposit of approximately €3 million. This may be one reason why Nokia enforced the decision in order to increase the pressure on the licensee Lenovo, which, in the view of the Munich court, is unwilling to accept. The current decision is a further step towards Munich courts being SEP owner friendly. In particular, it further increases the requirements for SEP users and their willingness to negotiate. This positive development for SEP owners certainly leads to increased caution for SEP users in product development, but particularly in ongoing license negotiations. This could also be seen as judges strengthening the patent rights against the plans of the German government to change patent law.

In this article, which was published in Volume 12, Issue 13 of the International Pharmaceutical Industry (IPI) Journal, Mathys & Squire Partner Martin MacLean demonstrates how, following the case of Regeneron v Kymab, transgenic mice claims have been found insufficient by the Court of Appeal.

The Supreme Court judgment (24 June 2020) sends a clear “no” Brexit message to any big pharma contemplating corporate muscle-flexing of excessively broad patent claims. This ruling overturned the position held by the Court of Appeal that, for patents relating to “a principle of general application”, there was no requirement to teach how to make the full range of claimed products. In this regard, the Court of Appeal held that Regeneron’s contribution to the field extended beyond the products (transgenic mice) that could be made back in 2001, and instead related to the general principle of providing ‘better’ mice (thereby overcoming a prior art immuno-sickness problem inherent to mice transfected with human DNA). With hindsight, the Court of Appeal allowed too much weight to be given to the relative contribution the ‘better’ mice aspect provided in producing a(ny) mouse having commercial utility. In sum, the Supreme Court considered the Court of Appeal had incorrectly watered down the “sufficiency of disclosure” requirement of patent law and, in doing so, this judgment maintains a sensible balance between patent law enforceability and invalidity and provides guidance on what might constitute a ‘principle of general application’ for which broad claim scope might be held valid.

Click here to read the article in full. This provides an update to the original version, which was published in June 2020.

We are delighted to share the news of our client, Poseidon Plastics, has been awarded a £2.6 million grant from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the national science and research funding agency, as part of its Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging (SSPP) challenge.

The full press release is available below:

Using its proprietary technology as a platform, Poseidon’s mission is to develop a PET plastic recycling infrastructure on an industrial scale. This grant will be used to commercialise Poseidon’s scientifically proven chemical recycling technology through the construction of its first commercial facility, initially capable of processing 10kpta of waste PET. Construction is planned to start in Teesside in the second quarter of 2021 and will be completed in 2022.

The facility will redirect the equivalent of over one billion bottles per year out of landfills and the environment, to instead be repurposed into consumer packaging and other end-uses by Poseidon’s commercial partners. This facility marks the start of Poseidon’s programme to expand its chemical recycling process across the globe, rapidly expanding its output of recycled plastic feedstock, and reducing the use of PET as a ‘single-use’ plastic worldwide.

Partnering with waste collection experts Biffa Polymers, PET resin producers Alpek Polyester UK and DuPont Teijin Films UK, the University of York’s Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence and polyester fibre end-users, O’Neil’s and GRN Sportswear, Poseidon Plastics will demonstrate how previously unrecyclable post-consumer and post-industrial packaging and film, alongside other hard-to-recycle PET wastes can now be chemically recycled back to virgin-quality PET feedstock, Poseidon rBHETTM, for use in the manufacture of new consumer end-use goods.

By completing the supply chain from waste collection and sorting to feedstock production and PET manufacture through to consumer end-use goods, Poseidon and its partners will achieve a UK-first, a fully circular economy for PET plastic. 

Around 80 million tonnes per annum of PET is produced globally, only a quarter of which is recycled. After the end of short first-use cycle, the majority of post-consumer and post-industrial PET plastic is currently incinerated or dumped in landfill, as it is deemed unsuitable as a feedstock for current recycling systems and processes. This is where Poseidon looks to make an immediate and significant difference; PET is lightweight, strong, inexpensive and with Poseidon’s proprietary technology, a valuable feedstock within a closed-loop circular economy.

Martin Atkins, CEO of Poseidon Plastics, commented: “We are delighted that the potential of our technology has been recognised by the government through UK Research and Innovation. This grant, as part of UKRI’s SSPP challenge, represents a significant and tangible commercial step on our way to achieving our ambitious, global-scale recycling targets.

“With the help of Alpek Polyester and our other partners, the new Teesside plant will evidence the scalability of our advanced recycling process and help us towards our core goal of making an immediate, significant, and sustainable impact on the global issue of plastic waste.”

Commenting on the news, Mathys & Squire partner Chris Hamer, who acts for Poseidon Plastics, said: “This is excellent news for Poseidon Plastics, as well as a positive step for green technology companies as the UKRI has invested a significant sum to tackle the important issue of plastic waste recycling. This would not have been possible without the specialist expertise and determination of the team at Poseidon Plastics – I look forward to seeing the construction project begin!”