Apotex v Sanofi: manner of manufacture

As briefly noted last week, the High Court handed down its ruling in Apotex’ appeal. Although the case will be mainly remembered because Apotex lost its challenge to the patentability of Sanofi’s method of medical treatment, Apotex actually won on the patent infringement point. (As there was no appeal on that point, however, it was still liable for infringing the copyright in Sanofi’s product information.)

Claim 1 of Sanofi’s relevant patent is for:

[a] method of preventing or treating a skin disorder, wherein the skin disorder is psoriasis, which comprises administering to a recipient an effective amount of [leflunomide].

The patent for leflunomide itself has expired.

Apotex had received marketing approval from the TGA for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA).

By a majority of 4 – 1,[1] the High Court held that:

  1. a a method of medical treatment is indeed patentable subject matter – a manner of manufacture[2] – under Australian law;
  2. a second or subsequent use of a known substance could also be patentable subject matter; but
  3. Apotex did not infringe by selling or supplying its generic leflunomide according to its product information.

manner of manufacture

All 5 judges accepted the orthodoxy of the NRDC decision as defining the approach to whether a claim was to a manner of manufacture. And all 5 judges accepted it was a broad and widening concept.

Crennan and Kiefel JJ identified NRDC as essentially requiring 2 conditions to be satisfied. For example, at [235], their Honours quoted the Wellcome case:

This principle [in the NRDC Case] extends to a process which does not produce a new substance but results in ‘a new and useful effect’. If the new result is ‘an artificially created state of affairs’ providing economic utility, it may be considered a ‘manner of new manufacture’ within s 6 of the Statute of Monopolies. (Crennan and Kiefel JJ’s emphasis)

At [278] – [285], their Honours identified 7 reasons why a method of medical treatment could be patentable. Gaegler J agreed with these 7 reasons and proposed an eighth.[3] Given the broad scope of the concept, Crennan, Kiefel and Gaegler JJ considered the crucial consideration was that there was no economic or ethical basis for distinguishing between the patentability of a pharmaceutical (or other medical) product and a method.[4] French CJ’s reasoning was similar to this point; considering the historical exclusion from patentability to be an anomaly for which no clear and consistent foundation had been established.[5]

In contrast, Hayne J in dissent considered at [143] – [150] that it could well be possible to distinguish between patenting medical products and methods of treatment. Instead, his Honour considered that a process would only be patentable if the product (in the sense of the result, outcome or effect) of the process, and not just the process itself, had economic utility. Hayne J considered that a method of medical treatment did not satisfy that criterion because (at [163]):

The effect of using the process is personal to the individual. It is not an effect which the person who owns the right to use the process, or any person other than the individual who has been treated, can turn to economic account in any way, whether directly or indirectly. If the individual who has been treated can turn the effect to economic account, he or she can do so only indirectly: by taking advantage of better health to make a more valuable contribution to national production. The individual is not a subject of commerce. The product of the process in the individual (having better health than might otherwise have been the case) cannot be sold. ….

Perhaps reflecting Hayne J’s approach to some extent, Crennan and Kiefel JJ at [287] did consider that there was a distinction to be drawn between uses of therapeutic substances and the activities and procedures of doctors when treating patients on the basis that the latter are “non-economic”:

There is, however, a distinction which can be acknowledged between a method of medical treatment which involves a hitherto unknown therapeutic use of a pharmaceutical (having prior therapeutic uses) and the activities or procedures of doctors (and other medical staff) when physically treating patients. Although it is unnecessary to decide the point, or to seek to characterise such activities or procedures exhaustively, speaking generally they are, in the language of the NRDC Case, “essentially non?economic” and, in the language of the EPC and the Patents Act 1977 (UK), they are not “susceptible” or “capable” of industrial application. To the extent that such activities or procedures involve “a method or a process”, they are unlikely to be able to satisfy the NRDC Case test for the patentability of processes because they are not capable of being practically applied in commerce or industry, a necessary prerequisite of a “manner of manufacture”.[6]

French CJ, however, at [1] and [44] expressly included surgical procedures in his Honour’s finding in favour of patentability.

second use of a known substance

As Crrennan and Kiefel JJ pointed out, NRDC itself involved a second or subsequent use of a known substance, the hitherto unsuspected properties of which squarely satisfied the requirements for inventiveness. Apotex’ reliance on this basis, therefore, failed at [291] in succinct terms.

the infringement question

… will have to wait for another day.

Apotex Pty Ltd v Sanofi-Aventis Australia Pty Ltd [2013] HCA 50


  1. French CJ, Crennan, Kiefel and Gaegler JJ; Hayne J dissenting.  ?
  2. Patents Act 1990 s 18(1)(a). The claim would, of course, also have to satisfy the other requirements including novelty, inventive step, utility etc.  ?
  3. Gaegler J appears to be alone in attributing weight to the potential disruption to business investments if the endorsement by Bristol-Myers v Squibb of the patentability of methods of medical treatment was overturned after 13 years.  ?
  4. See [282] for Crennan and Kiefel JJ; [314] for Gaegler J.  ?
  5. At [50]. See also [44] – [49].  ?
  6. Earlier, at [266] – [271], their Honours had noticed that Congress amended the US Patents Act to include §287(c)  ?

    “the effect of which is to permit the patenting of surgical methods to continue but to bar actions for patent infringement against medical practitioners (and ”related health care entit[ies]“) for ”the performance of a medical or surgical procedure on a body“.”

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