The plaintiffs had applied for a product licence for a patented drug. To support its application, it supplied the authority with confidential information which the authority now sought to make use of the confidential information when considering later applications for licences for similar products.
Held: The authority had a duty of public safety, and to ensure fair treatment of all applicants. That duty required it to make use of such information where required. EU law did not prevent such use since the regulations allowed the restrictions on such use to be overridden by national law.
Lord Bridge of Harwich, Lord Templeman, Lord Ackner, Lord Oliver of Aylmerton and Lord Lowry
[1989] 1 WLR 1
lip
Council Directive (65/65/E.E.C.) 4.8, Medicines Act 1968 (c. 67), 6 7(2) 20(1)(b), Medicines (Medicines Act 1968 Amendment) Regulations 1977 (S.I. 1977 No. 1050) 4(3)
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Allen and Hanburys Ltd v Generics (UK) Ltd 1986
A licence: ‘passes no proprietary interest in anything; it only makes an action lawful which would otherwise have been unlawful.’ . .
Cited – British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd v Armstrong Patents Co Ltd HL 1986
The claimant’s product was made from drawings. The drawings were protected as copyright artistic works. They were reproduced in a three dimensional form by the claimant’s own products. Someone who copied the claimant’s products indirectly copied the . .
Cited – Butler v Board of Trade ChD 1970
Goff J discussed the criterion for admissibility of evidence:’If one rejects the bare relevance test, as I have done, then what has to be shown prima facie is not merely that there is a bona fide and reasonably tenable charge of crime or fraud but a . .
Cited – Castrol Australia Pty Ltd v EmTech Associates Pty Ltd 1980
(Australia) The court reviewed the development of the common law rule that no confidence can exist in iniquity. The court rejected a submission that the Trade Practices Commission should be able to use a particular confidential report for the . .
Cited – In re Coca-Cola Co HL 1986
The claimants had used the distinctive shape of their bottle to help advertise their soft drink. The registered design rights in the bottle had expired.
Held: The House refused to allow trade mark law to be exploited and rejected the argument . .
Cited – Interlego AG v Tyco Industries Inc PC 5-May-1988
How much new material for new copyright
(Hong Kong) Toy building bricks were manufactured by Lego in accordance with engineering drawings made for that purpose. One issue was whether new drawings made since 1972, altering the original drawings in various minor respects but added new . .
Cited – Keene, In re CA 1922
The bankrupt, against whom a receiving order had been made, had carried on business in the manufacture and sale in England, France and America of proprietary articles made according to secret formulas invented by him and his brother with whom he was . .
Cited – Metropolitan Asylum District Managers v Hill HL 7-Mar-1881
There was an allegation that the managers had been committing an actionable nuisance, alternatively that they had been negligent in and about the construction and maintenance of a hospital for small-pox patients in Hampstead. The trial judge had . .
Cited by:
Cited – Smith New Court Securities Ltd v Scrimgeour Vickers HL 21-Nov-1996
The defendant had made misrepresentations, inducing the claimant to enter into share transactions which he would not otherwise have entered into, and which lost money.
Held: A deceitful wrongdoer is properly liable for all actual damage . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Intellectual Property
Updated: 28 November 2021; Ref: scu.178601