Beecham Group Ltd v Sime Darby Singapore Ltd and Others

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Buttrose J
• Judgment Date: 20 October 1967
• Neutral Citation: [1967] SGHC 20
• Docket Number: Motion in Suit No 1065 of 1967
• Date: 20 October 1967
• Published date: 19 September 2003
• Year: 1967
• Plaintiff Counsel: John Patrick Graham QC and AC Ferguson (Drew & Napier)
• Citation: [1967] SGHC 20
• Defendant Counsel: Richard Kesham Fullagar QC and AP Godwin (Donaldson & Burkinshaw)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Subject Matter: Whether importation and sale of hetacillin infringing patents,Producers of ampicillin having worldwide patents over drug,Injunctions,Whether to grant interlocutory injunction to restrain alleged infringement of patents,Interlocutory injunction

This is a motion for an interlocutory injunction restraining the defendants and each of them until judgment in this action or further order and whether by their servants, agents or otherwise from advertising, offering for sale, selling or supplying the antibiotic hetacillin or any preparation containing the same or otherwise infringing any or all of the plaintiffs` United Kingdom letters patent nos 870395 and 873049 registered in Singapore under the provisions of the Registration of United Kingdom Patents Ordinance as No 99 of 1965 and No 34 of 1962 respectively.

The plaintiff company has manufactured in England and produced a semi-synthetic penicillin drug called ampicillin which is covered by patents throughout the world. In the United States of America the second defendants also produce ampicillin under licence. The present action arises from the manufacture and sale of another semi-synthetic penicillin drug called hetacillin by the defendants which so it is said infringes the plaintiffs` Letters Patent and which will cause them substantial injury for which damages will not compensate.

It has developed, so I was told, into a worldwide battle between Beecham Group Ltd and the American firm of Bristol-Myers Co the second defendants. It was not disputed that the semi-synthetic product called ampicillin was discovered and made by the plaintiffs in the latter part of 1957 through the isolation of the penicillin `nucleus` 6-aminopenicillanic acid and has been recognised throughout the world as a fundamental break-through in the field of chemotherapy and in the manufacture of antibiotics. It is, I think I am right in saying, the only commercially available penicillin known to be highly active against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative organisms over a broad spectrum and is rapidly becoming one of the major therapeutic agents of the world. Following this discovery a close relationship existed between Beecham Group Ltd and Bristol-Myers Co and arrangements were made to co-operate on a world-wide basis. Broadly speaking, according to the plaintiffs, Bristol-Myers Co were to have the rights of manufacture and sale in the Americas leaving the rest of the world to Beecham Group Ltd.

This arrangement would appear to have worked out satisfactorily and both companies co-operated and were of considerable assistance to each other. Quite recently, however, the plaintiffs say that the second defendants decided to enter the plaintiffs` market as for example in Britain, Australia, Malaya and Singapore and the plaintiffs were not prepared to accept this and that was why they took proceedings against Bristol-Myers Co not only in Britain but in other parts of the world including the present motion before the court here.

No point was taken before me as to the validity of the patents and I am, I think, entitled to and do assume prima facietheir validity for the present purposes.

The next question is whether these patents have been infringed by the defendants by the importation and sale in Singapore of the drug hetacillin.

My attention was drawn to the recent Court of Appeal decision in England granting the present plaintiffs an interlocutory injunction against Bristol-Myers Co similar to the one now sought in the present action. It was contended on behalf...