Micawber point

Not necessarily limited to intellectual property cases. An approach identified (and, perhaps, named) by Jacob LJ in Les Laboratoires Servier and others v Apotex Inc and others [2008] EWCA Civ 445, where the appellants seemed to hope that a new crystalline form of the substance in suit would turn up one day. In Charles Dickens's 1850 novel, David Copperfield, Mr Micawber (based on Dickens's own father) lived in the hopeful expectation that "something will turn up".