Breathing Buildings wins patent challenge
Breathing Buildings, which specialises in natural ventilation, has successfully defended the patent for the Cambridge University passive stack. Filed in 2006 and granted in Europe in 2012, the patent concerns the use of heat gains in a building to make natural ventilation more effective in the winter. The hearing at the European Patent Office (EPO) in Munich upheld the patent in its original form and without the need for amendment.
The patent applies to the company’s e-stack natural-ventilation mixing system.
Shaun Fitzgerald, managing director of Breathing Buildings, said, ‘All the natural-ventilation systems on the market when we filed the invention simply dumped cold air in winter or used energy-hungry radiators to try and overcome cold draughts.’
Passivent’s parent company filed papers with the EPO opposing the grant of the patent.
