Inventor loses suit against HDB and has patent revoked
A 54-year-old man who took the Housing and Development Board (HDB) to court for a infringing his patent for a clothes-drying rack has instead got his patent revoked.
External clothes drying racks seen at a block in Toa Payoh. These are allegedly patented designs of a 54-year-old inventor who is suing the Housing and Development Board (HDB) for infringing his patent for a clothes-drying rack, but the statutory board rejects the claim and is seeking to revoke the patent granted to him in 2004. Photo: Ooi Boon Keong
A 54-year-old man who took the Housing and Development Board (HDB) to court for a infringing his patent for a clothes-drying rack has instead got his patent revoked.
Mr Yiap Hang Boon, who set up the now-defunct company Sunpole Engineering and Trading, first sued the statutory board in March 2013, claiming that the external clothes-drying racks of some HDB flats in Toa Payoh Central, Queenstown and Sengkang have infringed his patent, which was first granted in 2004.
In his judgment today, Justice Chan Seng Onn ruled that the HDB’s racks do not constitute infringement as they “do not take each and every one of the essential integers” of Mr Yiap’s alleged invention.
Furthermore, Justice Chan allowed HDB’s counter claim and ordered Mr Yiap’s patent to be revoked as he found “no inventive step” in it.
Mr Yiap will have to pay S$160,000 in legal fees and disbursements.
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