A British patent was not infringed by a sale of goods where the property in the goods had already passed before they arrived in this country. Lord Loreburn LC said: ‘A contract to sell unascertained goods is not a complete sale, but a promise to sell. There must be added to it some act which completes the sale, such as delivery or the appropriation of specific goods to the contract by the assent, express or implied, of both buyer and seller.’
Lord Atkinson where he has stated : ‘And it is, moreover, quite obvious that a contract entered into in England for the sale of a specific ascertained chattel situated abroad, of a kind and nature protected here by patent but never imported into this country, can no more deprive the patentee of his profits’ . . raise the price of the article at home, hurt trade here, or cause general inconvenience . . ‘to the community in these kingdoms – the very evils struck at by the Statute of Monopolies – than would the same contract if entered into abroad. The two transactions are indeed equally outside the purview of this statute.’
Judges:
Lord Loreburn LC, Lord Atkinson
Citations:
[1906] AC 419
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Oxonica Energy Ltd v Neuftec Ltd PatC 5-Sep-2008
The parties disputed the meaning of an patent and know how licence. The parties disputed whether the agreement referred to IP rights before formal patents had been granted despite the terms of the agreement.
Held: ‘The secret of drafting legal . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Intellectual Property
Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.273184