A Ltd v B Bank
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 31 July 1996 |
| Date | 31 July 1996 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
Court of Appeal
Before Lord Justice Leggatt, Lord Justice Morritt and Lord Justice Brooke
Jurisdiction - patent dispute - foreign banknotes - sovereign functions not affected
The court had jurisdiction and had the duty to determine a dispute between parties in which the claim alleged infringement of the claimant's product's United Kingdom patent used in the manufacture of foreign banknotes, such notes being kept for disposal and disposed of by a foreign commercial bank in England.
The court was not being called upon to adjudicate upon, or even consider the lawfulness of the issue of the banknotes by the foreign country's state bank, nor was any claim made that might interfere with the sovereign functions of that foreign state.
The Court of Appeal so held in a reserved judgment allowing the appeal of the plaintiff, A Ltd, against the order of Judge Ford on October 4, 1995, in the Patents County Court, whereby he declared that the court had no jurisdiction over the defendant, B Bank, in respect of the subject matter of the claim or relief or remedy, and set aside the service of the summons and statement of case on the defendant bank.
Mr Jonathan Sumption, QC, for the plaintiff; Mr David Lloyd Jones and Mr Peter Colley for the defendant bank; Mr Richard Plender, QC, for the central bank intervening.
LORD JUSTICE LEGGATT said that the plaintiff was the registered proprietor of a UK patent relating to the invention of a type of security paper suitable for use in the manufacture of bank notes. The intervener, the central bank of a foreign country, had security paper manufactured in Italy, printed and issued as that foreign country's currency, which the plaintiff alleged infringed their UK patent, contrary to section 60(1)(a) of the Patents Act 1977, and which the defendant bank disposed of in England.
Because the rights conferred by the UK patent were territorial, the plaintiff made no allegations of infringement against the foreign country or the central bank.
Mr Plender contended that the issue of bank notes was relevant because it formed the kernel of the dispute; objection was taken to the English court adjudicating on the alleged infringement. Although the central bank could for the future alter any paper on which their notes were printed, it would be impossible to separate currency already circulating abroad, if proved to infringe the patent, from that circulating at home.
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