HNB tobacco products are an innovation in tobacco products which enable production of a nicotine-containing vapour at lower temperatures than traditional cigarettes. Whilst traditional cigarettes burn tobacco and produce smoke, products which employ an HNB system need only be heated in a specially designed chamber and produce a nicotine-containing vapour. By merely heating the tobacco, manufacturers claim that the user may experience less exposure to harmful toxins inherent in smoke inhalation with traditional cigarettes.To get more news about iqos, you can visit hitaste.net official website.

The concept of HNB has been around for several decades. However, it is not until recently that companies such as Philip Morris and British American Tobacco have been able to produce devices which are successfully marketable to consumers. The device at the centre of this dispute, Philip Morris' IQOS device, is the only HNB product on the market in the UK.
Philip Morris sought revocation of two HNB patents held by two companies in the British American Tobacco ("BAT") group: Rai Strategic Holdings and Nicoventures Trading Limited (as exclusive licensee of the patents). Philip Morris argued that the patents were invalid on two grounds: first, that the patents contained added matter and second that the patents lacked any inventive step. BAT sought to establish both the validity of their patents and that Philip Morris' IQOS device infringed those patents.

A patent may be revoked if it is found that the specification of the patent extends beyond the matters disclosed in the application for the patent. Here, both patents derived from the same PCT patent application (PCT Application WO 2008/108889); the claims had been filed after the IQOS product had been launched.