The NOCO Company v Brown and Watson International Pty Ltd

This was a Full Court appeal in a patent dispute about portable vehicle battery jump starters. The patent owner, The NOCO Company, is a United States company from Ohio. It owned three Australian patents in the same family, all titled “Portable vehicle battery jump starter apparatus with safety protection”. Brown and Watson International Pty Ltd, an Australian company, sold Projecta-branded jump starter products in Australia. NOCO alleged that four of those products infringed its patents.

The accused products were the Projecta IS 920, IS 1220, IS 1400 and IS 2000. The letters “IS” stood for “Intelli-Start”. The patents were directed to a jump starter apparatus for boosting a depleted or discharged battery, such as a car battery. At a commercial level, this was a familiar product market dispute. One supplier said its patent rights covered the relevant safety-controlled jump starter technology. The other supplier denied infringement and responded by attacking the patents themselves.

That procedural pattern is important. Patent litigation is often not just a fight about whether a competing product falls within the patent claims. It can quickly become a validity contest. Here, Brown and Watson cross-claimed and alleged invalidity on multiple grounds, including novelty, inventive step, best method, support, insufficiency and utility. The primary judge found that many asserted claims were not entitled to the priority date claimed by NOCO and, because of a concession by NOCO, those claims were invalid for lack of novelty. The primary judge also found that all asserted claims were invalid for lack of inventive step, dismissed NOCO’s infringement claim, declared numerous claims invalid and ordered revocation.

NOCO then appealed to the Full Court. The Full Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the primary judge’s reasoning. It also made costs orders against NOCO and varied the earlier costs position. So the commercial story ended badly for the patent owner: it sued to enforce its patents, but the litigation left the asserted claims revoked and exposed it to substantial costs.

The patents addressed safety problems in jump-starting devices. The specification identified risks that arise when jumper terminals touch each other while connected to a charged battery, or when positive and negative terminals are connected with the wrong polarity. The claimed apparatus used a power supply, battery connectors, a power switch and a control system or circuit. That control system was configured to detect whether a battery was present and whether it was connected with the correct polarity before switching power on.

The extract reproduces the substance of claim 1 of the 223 patent. In simplified terms, the claim required a jump starting apparatus with a control system or circuit that detects battery presence and polarity, and switches on the power switch to connect the power supply to the battery only when the battery is present, properly connected and connected with the correct polarity. Other claims added features such as a microcontroller, sensors, FET arrangements, battery clamps and USB charging components.

The specification also described a “manual mode”. This was not a minor drafting detail. According to the extract, the manual mode allowed the user to jump-start vehicles that had no battery, or where the battery voltage was so low that automatic detection by the microcontroller was not possible. The only exception described was reverse polarity. If the car battery was connected in reverse, the internal lithium battery power was not to be switched to the vehicle battery connect port.

That feature mattered because one of the appeal issues was whether a device that could operate in a manual mode was outside the scope of certain claims. For businesses, this is a useful reminder about claim construction. A patent claim may be directed to a system that only switches on power when specified conditions are met. If an accused product has an operating mode that allows power to be switched on in circumstances outside those conditions, that may affect whether the product falls within the claim. In other words, a product can look commercially similar and still sit outside the claim language because of how one operating mode works.

The appeal raised several distinct patent law issues. First, the Full Court had to consider whether the primary judge erred in finding that certain claims would have been obvious to a person skilled in the art in light of common general knowledge. Second, it had to consider whether certain claims would have been obvious in light of common general knowledge combined with prior art documents. Third, it had to consider whether certain claims were not disclosed in the earlier PCT application and therefore were not entitled to the earlier priority date claimed by NOCO.

The appeal also raised a claim scope issue: whether a device that could operate in a manual mode was outside the scope of certain claims. That issue is especially relevant for product businesses because it shows how infringement analysis can turn on the exact relationship between claim wording and product functionality. The court was not simply asking whether the Projecta products were jump starters with safety features. It was asking whether the products, as properly understood, answered the language of the asserted claims.

There was also a notice of contention by Brown and Watson. One ground argued that the primary judge erred in failing to consider whether the PCT application disclosed a device that allows manual operation. The Full Court rejected that ground. Another ground argued that the primary judge erred in finding that the relevant date for knowledge of best method for the purpose of s 40(2)(aa) of the Patents Act 1990 (Cth) was the filing date of the parent application rather than the filing date of the divisional application. The Full Court upheld that ground. The extract states that other grounds of contention were not considered.

That means the appeal was not a single-issue fight. It involved inventive step, priority, claim scope and a best method point on the notice of contention. For a business owner, the broader lesson is that patent appeals often involve several overlapping legal and technical questions, and a loss on one major issue can be enough to decide the case.

The Full Court dismissed the appeal. The catchwords and orders make the overall result clear: the primary judge’s reasoning was upheld and the appeal failed. That left in place the dismissal of NOCO’s infringement claim and the invalidity findings that had led to revocation of the asserted claims identified in the primary judgment.

The Full Court upheld the primary judge’s reasoning on the issues identified in the extract. It upheld the findings that certain claims were obvious. It also upheld the finding that certain claims were not disclosed in the earlier PCT application and therefore were not entitled to the earlier priority date. And it upheld the finding that a device which could operate in a manual mode was outside the scope of certain claims.

The notice of contention produced a mixed result. The Full Court rejected the ground that the primary judge erred in failing to consider whether the PCT application disclosed a device allowing manual operation. But it upheld the ground that the primary judge had used the wrong date for assessing knowledge of best method under s 40(2)(aa), holding that the relevant date was not the filing date of the parent application as the primary judge had found. Even so, that point did not change the overall outcome because the appeal itself was dismissed.

On costs, the Full Court ordered that NOCO pay Brown and Watson’s costs of the appeal. It also varied the earlier costs order so that NOCO pay 85% of Brown and Watson’s costs of the claim and the cross-claim, including reserved costs, on a party and party basis, to be determined on a lump sum basis. Orders 2 to 4 made on 24 September 2025 were set aside. For businesses, the costs result is not a side issue. It is part of the commercial outcome of the case.

If your business owns patents, this case is a reminder that enforcement should begin with a rigorous internal review. A granted patent may still be vulnerable. Before threatening proceedings or filing suit, a business should test whether the claims being relied on are actually supported by the earlier application used to claim priority, whether those claims are exposed to an inventive step attack, and whether the accused product really satisfies every essential claim feature. The fact that a product appears to solve the same problem or uses similar marketing language is not enough.

The manual mode issue is especially useful as a practical example. The patents described a system that switched on power only when specified safety conditions were met. The accused products were said to be capable of operating in a manual mode. The Full Court upheld the conclusion that a device capable of operating in a manual mode was outside the scope of certain claims. For product businesses, that shows why claim mapping must be done at the level of actual operation. A single operating mode can matter if it means the product does not answer the claim language as drafted.

If your business is accused of infringement, this case shows the value of looking beyond a simple denial. Brown and Watson cross-claimed for invalidity on multiple grounds. The extract shows that the primary judge did not need to decide every pleaded invalidity ground because the patents already failed on key issues. That is commercially important. A defendant does not always need to win every technical point. One or two strong grounds, such as inventive step or lack of entitlement to priority, may be enough to defeat the case and reshape settlement leverage.

The costs orders also deserve close attention. Patent litigation in the Federal Court is expensive, and the losing party may be ordered to pay a substantial share of the other side’s costs. Here, the appeal costs were awarded against NOCO, and the earlier costs order was increased from 80% to 85% of Brown and Watson’s costs of the claim and cross-claim. Businesses should model that downside before commencing proceedings. The legal spend is not limited to your own lawyers and experts. If the case fails, the other side’s costs can become a major commercial liability.

For a business considering patent proceedings, this case suggests a practical set of questions. If you are the patent owner, ask whether the claims you want to assert are the strongest claims in the family, whether the priority position is secure, and whether the accused product falls within the claims on a careful construction rather than a broad commercial impression. If the product has a manual override, optional mode, software setting or safety bypass, ask whether that feature changes the infringement analysis.

If you are defending a claim, ask whether the patent can be attacked on priority, inventive step or another focused ground. Also ask whether the patentee has overreached by asserting too many claims or by relying on claims that are not well supported by the earlier filing. The extract notes that NOCO abandoned some claims late in the trial. That does not by itself decide anything, but it is a reminder that claim selection and case theory matter.

Finally, ask what the litigation is really trying to achieve. If the objective is to stop a competitor quickly, a weakly tested patent case can backfire by inviting revocation and costs exposure. If the objective is to defend market share against a patent threat, a targeted invalidity strategy may create leverage. Patent disputes are technical, but the commercial decisions around them are often straightforward: know the strength of your rights, know the limits of your claim wording, and know the financial risk if the court disagrees with you.

The Full Court judgment was delivered on 10 April 2026. The appeal was from the primary judgment delivered in 2025 and a later 2025 costs judgment. The hearing took place on 24 and 25 March 2026. The appeal was dismissed, and the costs orders were adjusted in Brown and Watson’s favour.

The patents had filing dates of 20 February 2020, 29 October 2021 and 25 February 2022 respectively, while each claimed an earliest priority date of 3 July 2014 based on the earlier PCT application. Those dates mattered because entitlement to the earlier priority date was one of the central validity issues in the case.

This page reflects the published Federal Court appeal judgment and orders for The NOCO Company v Brown and Watson International Pty Ltd [2026] FCAFC 44. The extract provides clear support for the identity of the parties, the patents in suit, the accused Projecta products, the appeal issues, the dismissal of the appeal, the notice of contention result and the costs orders.

Some detailed technical reasoning is not reproduced here. If you need to rely on the case for detailed patent advice, the complete reasons should be reviewed, especially on claim construction, the manual mode analysis, priority entitlement and the best method issue.