HE HAS been in business for more than 25 years, but Stira stairs founder Michael Burke has only just emerged from what he sees as one of the biggest challenges of his career.

Last Wednesday, a court in London ruled that Mr Burke’s patented Stira folding stairs design had been infringed by a rival manufacturer in the UK.

It was the end of an almost three-year battle that saw the Irish businessman take his case to the British courts – and win.

The events which led to the legal action being taken began in 2006, when Stira received a complaint from a British customer.

“We were immediately suspicious as we had a perfect track-record in terms of the quality of our product,” said Mr Burke, based in Dunmore, Co Galway, who has been manufacturing and selling folding stairs since 1982.

“One of our employees visited the house in question and realised that the stairs wasn’t our product. Although it was an exact copy, it didn’t have the unit-number that we put on all our stairs.”

The stairs in question had, in fact, been produced by London- based manufacturer Michael Heraghty. Heraghty had been a customer of Stira since 2002, but had begun making versions of his own.

“Legal action is always a last resort, but we had to do something. Our biggest worry was that it was affecting our own brand. Heraghty’s stairs were faulty and we had heard that customers were bringing legal proceedings against him,” Burke explains.

“Because his stairs were so like ours and one of the fitters we employed was an ex-employee of his, we were worried that people would confuse the two companies.”

Initially, mediation was tried between Burke and Heraghty in London, chaired by a senior British lawyer. However, the talks broke down. In 2006, Burke officially launched legal proceedings, hiring a Manchester law firm. At first he was confident that the courts would rule in his favour.

“In 1996, we had taken out a patent protecting our design. We were sure that would protect us legally.”

However, the case ran into complications. It emerged that in 1996, before Stira was granted its patent, The Irish Times published an article and accompanying photograph on Stira. The defendant argued that because a Stira stairs was visible in the photo, effectively its design was in the public domain for all to see.

Patent law states that “knowledge”, in this case the design of the product, cannot be “made available to the public” prior to the manufacturer filing the patent. Because the incriminating photograph appeared before Stira was granted its patent, the defendant argued that this called into question the validity of the patent.

“When the photo issue emerged it was a real shock,” Burke recalls. “We were now faced with the possibility that we would lose the case. At this stage I had invested about £80,000 and we were faced with the prospect of not only losing, but also having to pay the other side’s costs.”

The story, as played out in court, also featured a cameo by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, who had been minister for trade and tourism back in 1996. He had been present at the 1996 photo-shoot and interview to help publicise the product.

However, Kenny was spared a court appearance. The judge found that the former minister and the photographer “were not skilled in the art and there is no evidence that they were interested in manufacturing folding attic stairs”.

He added that he believed that Mr Kenny “was in the main part of the factory at the time chatting to the employees – they were potential voters”.

Last week’s judgment brought the legal battle to a close. The judge ruled in favour of Burke’s company, rejecting the defendant’s claim that the photograph represented “prior disclosure”.

He found Heraghty to have infringed the patent in all instances except for one model, which uses a different mechanism than the mechanism covered by the patent.

Burke estimates that he spent £250,000 on the process, an expense which has been compounded by the sterling-euro exchange rate. For a company which, he says, has turnover of just under €2 million, that was a significant outlay on a case that, ultimately, could have gone against him.

However, with the ruling in his favour, it is estimated that 80-95 per cent of his costs will be covered by Heraghty. So was it worth it? “Absolutely. On one level, we couldn’t afford not to. We were trying to build our brand in the UK.”

However, for Burke, it is also a manner of principle. “I think it shows that the little guy sometimes wins.”