TGA

Commonwealth can sue on the undertaking as to damages

The Full Court (Dowsett, Kenny and Nicholas JJ) has upheld the Commonwealth’s power to sue for damages on the undertaking as to damages given by Sanofi and Wyeth when obtaining interlocutory injunctions against generic suppliers.

Sanofi sued Apotex (then called GenRX) for patent infringement when the latter sought to registration in the Therapeutic Goods Register of drug containing clopidogrel. Sanofi obtained an interlocutory injunction preventing the listing and sale of Apotex’ product, on terms of the “usual undertaking as to damages”. Thus, as a condition of obtaining the interlocutory relief, Sanofi undertook to the court:

(a) to submit to such order (if any) as the Court may consider to be just for the payment of compensation, to be assessed by the Court or as it may direct, to any person, whether or not a party, adversely affected by the operation of the interlocutory order or undertaking or any continuation (with or without variation) thereof; and

(b) to pay the compensation referred to in (a) to the person there referred to. (emphasis supplied)

After the trial judge found Sanofi’s patent valid and infringed, the Full Court on appeal held that the patent was invalid. Ultimately, the High Court refused special leave.[1]

The Commonwealth, which was not a party to either the Sanofi or Wyeth proceedings is now claiming compensation from Sanofi and Wyeth under the “undertaking as to damages”. In broad terms, it says it suffered losses because the price it paid under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme was higher than it would have been if the generic parties had not been prevented from listing and selling their products by the interlocutory injunctions.

Sanofi and Wyeth argued that sections 26B, 26C, 26D of the Therapeutic Goods Act[2] precluded the Commonwealth from claiming under the usual undertaking as to damages. The Full Court held, however, that these provisions were ancillary or additional to the Court’s powers under the undertaking. They did not provide an exhaustive code which excluded the operation of the undertaking.

Dowsett J delivered a concurring judgment, suggesting at [20] that some restriction on the scope of the usual undertaking should have been sought and then questioning, if such a restriction had been sought, whether it would have been appropriate to grant the interlocutory injunction:

…. As the Commonwealth was not a party to the proceedings in which the undertakings were given, they were presumably not extracted at its request. I infer that the Court extracted the undertakings. It is not suggested that it lacked the power to do so in order to protect the interests of identified or unidentified third parties. In submitting that the Commonwealth may not recover other than pursuant to s 26C, the Sanofi and Wyeth parties effectively seek to resile from their undertakings. It may be simply too late for them to do so. Any limitations upon the undertakings ought to have been sought at the time at which they were given. The Court would then have had to consider whether such limited undertakings were sufficient to justify the grant of the interlocutory injunctions. The Commonwealth has not put its case in that way. However, in any event, I see no basis for limiting the Commonwealth’s right to seek to enforce the undertakings to the extent that it benefits under them.

If only the regime under sections 26B, 26C, 26D had been available, it looks like Sanofi’s and Wyeth’s exposure would have been limited to situations where they had given false or misleading certificates or did not have “reasonable prospects of success”.[3]

Commonwealth of Australia v Sanofi (formerly Sanofi-Aventis) [2015] FCAFC 172


  1. Similarly, in the Wyeth proceedings an interlocutory injunction was granted on the usual undertaking as to damages, but the patent was ultimately found to be invalid.  ?
  2. These provisions were introduced as part of the package implementing the Australia – United States Free Trade Agreement relating particularly to the 5 year data exclusivity for pharmaceutical test data.  ?
  3. Defined in s 26C(4) as “(4) For the purpose of paragraph (3)(b), proceedings have reasonable prospects of success if: (a) the second person had reasonable grounds in all the circumstances known to the second person, or which ought reasonably to have been known to the second person (in addition to the fact of grant of the patent), for believing that he or she would be entitled to be granted final relief by the court against the person referred to in paragraph (1)(a) for infringement by that person of the patent; and (b) the second person had reasonable grounds in all the circumstances known to the second person, or which ought reasonably to have been known to the second person (in addition to the fact of grant of the patent), for believing that each of the claims, in respect of which infringement is alleged, is valid; and
    (c) the proceedings are not otherwise vexatious or unreasonably pursued.”  ?

Commonwealth can sue on the undertaking as to damages Read More »

Apotex v Sanofi: the (un)implied licence

In addition to finding Sanofi’s patent infringed, the Full Court affirmed Jagot J’s conclusion that Apotex had no implied licence to reproduce the copyright in Sanofi’s product information documents (PID).

Before a (medicinal) drug can be offered for sale in Australia, it must be registered in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. One of the requirements for registration is the submission of a PID, describing the drug, what it can be used for and how and providing warnings about potential problems and risks.

Apotex argued that it was industry custom or usage for the suppliers of generic drugs simply to provide PID for their generic drugs in substantially the same terms as the originator’s PID. It provided evidence of many cases where this had happened, including a number of cases in which Sanofi’s generic arm had simply re-used a competitor’s original PID itself. This included:

13 drugs of which Sanofi-Aventis was the innovator and 22 generic versions of the same drug,
the top 10 drugs by value on the PBS and 62 generic versions of the same drug,
some eight drugs of which companies other than Sanofi-Aventis were the innovators and generic versions of those drugs of which Sanofi-Aventis was the issuer.

The TGA did not require PID submitted by generics to be in the same terms as the originator’s PID. If a generic’s PID was different in substance or terms, however, the TGA may require the generic to submit additional safety or efficacy data to support registration of its own formulation.

On the last day of trial, Sanofi was also allowed to introduce evidence showing that some generics did in fact prepare and register their own PIDs rather than just copy the originator’s PID.

In this state of affairs, the Full Court unanimously upheld Jagot J’s conclusion that the evidence of an implied licence was at best equivocal and so rejected the implication. (Keane CJ [80]-[81], Bennett and Nicholas JJ [98]-[208])

It is difficult to resist the impression that, if instead of being sober judges their Honours (at least Bennett and Nicholas JJ) were teenagers, the suggestion that a licence could be implied between parties who were not in any type of contractual or consensual relationship would have been met with:

rofl.

As to the public interest, Parliament was forced to intervene (at the legislative equivalent of the speed of light) and create yet another specific defence and, in due course, Jagot J found that Apotex could rely on it as a defence (for acts done after the amendment came into force).

So far, 2012 is not proving an easy year for those trying to claim they have an implied licence to protect themselves from infringement allegations.

Apotex Pty Ltd v Sanofi-Aventis Australia Pty Ltd (No 2) [2012] FCAFC 102

Apotex v Sanofi: the (un)implied licence Read More »

Misusing a patentee’s market power

The Court of General Instance (formerly (?) the EU’s CFI) has upheld the European Commission’s ruling that AstraZeneca abused its dominant position in the market by practices designed to block or delay generic drugs competing with Losec from entering the market.

The abusive practices were:

  1. submitting deliberately misleading statements to patent agents, national patent offices and national courts in order to acquire or preserve supplementary protections certificates for omeprazole to which AstraZeneca was not entitled or to which it was entitled for a shorter duration; and
  2. requesting (and obtaining) the withdrawal of regulatory marketing authorisations for Losec capsules and replacing those marketing authorisations with marketing authorisations for Losec MUPS tablets.

The result of the second practice was to delay entry on to the market of competing generic products as they could not use the abridged marketing approval process.

The Court did reduce, however, the fine from Euros 60 million to Euros 52.5 million.

The case concerned patents for omeprazole, the patent protection for which has generated some controversy in Australia.

Like the EU, Australian law does provide for supplementary protection certificates and there is the potential for abridged marketing approval processes for generics (pdf – e.g). Art. 82 of the Treaty also has some resemblance to s 46 of the TPA and, while we might think that the EU has a fairly idiosyncratic approach to determining market power, the Hoffman-La Roche ruling relied on by the Court of General Instance has been referred to with approval by the High Court in Australia.

Case T?321/05 AstraZeneca AB v Commission

which has been conveniently summarised by Linklaters and Gibson Dunn.

Now, we might think this is an application of the peculiar EU approach to

Misusing a patentee’s market power Read More »

Clinical trials for new medicines

Clinical trials for new medicines Read More »