Innes v Short and Beal: 1898

The defendant Short sold powdered zinc and gave instructions to a purchaser to enable the purchaser to infringe a process patent. The plaintiff patent holder sought damages saying that he was a joint tortfeasor. Held; Bingham J said: ‘There is no reason whatever why Mr. Short should not sell powdered zinc, and he will not be in the wrong, though he may know or expect the people who buy it from him are going to use it in such a way it will amount to an infringement of Mr. Innes’ patent rights. But he must not ask the people to use it in that way, and he must not ask the people to use it in that way in order to induce them to buy his powdered zinc from him.’

Judges:

Bigham J

Citations:

(1898) 15 RPC 449

Cited by:

CitedCBS Songs Ltd v Amstrad Consumer Electronics Plc HL 12-May-1988
The plaintiffs as representatives sought to restrain Amstrad selling equipment with two cassette decks without taking precautions which would reasonably ensure that their copyrights would not be infringed by its users.
Held: Amstrad could only . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Torts – Other, Intellectual Property

Updated: 01 May 2022; Ref: scu.267929