Beecham Group Plc and Another v Norton Healthcare Ltd and Others
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 01 October 1996 |
| Date | 01 October 1996 |
| Court | Chancery Division |
Patent Court of the Chancery Division
Before Mr Justice Jacob
Practice - leave to amend writ - jurisdiction - subject of patent action manufactured abroad
When a plaintiff commenced a patent action and later discovered that a foreign defendant was using confidential information stolen from the plaintiff to manufacture medicinal products and was using an English defendant as a United Kingdom importer to get the tainted product on to the UK market, the court was entitled to use its powers under Order 20, rule 5 of the Rules of the Supreme Court to grant the plaintiff leave to amend the writ in the patent action to include new causes of action based on breach of confidence.
In such a case the English court would not decline jurisdiction to hear the claim even though the product which was the subject matter of the action was being manufactured abroad.
Mr Justice Jacob so held in the Patent Court of the Chancery Division when granting leave to the plaintiffs, Beecham Group plc and Smith Kline Beecham plc, for leave to re-amend their writ and statement of claim against the defendants, Norton Healthcare Ltd, H N Norton & Co Ltd and LEC Pharmaceutical and Chemical Co DD ("Lek").
Mr David Kitchin, QC, Mr Adrian Briggs, Mr Justin Turner and Mr Nicholas Shea for the plaintiffs; Mr Simon Thorley, QC and Mr Henry Whittle for the first and second defendants; Mr Charles Sparrow, QC, for the third defendant.
MR JUSTICE JACOB said that the first two defendants, Norton, were associated English companies who intended to import from the third defendant, Lek, a Slovenian company, a medicinal tablet called "co-amoxiclav" which Lek manufactured.
The tablets contained a mixture of potassium clavulanate and amoxycillin trihydrate. In combination the two substances were a powerful antibiotic.
Beecham sold co-amoxiclav under the trade name Augmentin which had large sales. Although the basic patents on clavulanic acid and amoxycillin and their salts had expired Beecham had several later patents particularly covering various aspects of the manufacture of clavulanic acid.
In February 1996 Beecham commenced quia timet proceedings against Norton for infringement of two of those patents, claiming that the potassium clavulanate in the co-amoxiclav would be "obtained directly by means of carrying out" the processes of the two patents, contrary to section 60(1)(c) of the Patents...
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