An International Guide to
Patent Case Management for Judges

9.7.1 Injunctive relief

Often, the principal reason why a patentee will have commenced infringement proceedings will have been to seek an injunction against the defendant to prevent it from infringing the patent. The courts of England and Wales have the power to grant injunctions “in all cases in which it appears to the court to be just and convenient to do so.”¹⁴²

The exact wording and scope of an injunction is usually considered by the trial judge at the consequentials hearing. The normal form of the injunction is one in “general form,” restraining the defendant(s) from infringing the patent, as opposed to one limited to restraining the defendant(s) from performing the specific acts found by the court at trial to infringe the patent.

The granting of a general form injunction is a matter of discretion. The important issue of whether and in what terms to grant an injunction was considered by Mr Justice Birss (as he then was) in Evalve Inc. v. Edwards Lifesciences Ltd,¹⁴³ who identified the following general principles:

1. i) A general injunction to restrain future infringements is the normal remedy for the patentee.
2. ii) The burden is on the defendant to give reasons why such an injunction should not be granted.
3. iii) All the circumstances should be considered. The public interest, such as the impact on third parties, is a relevant consideration. […]
4. iv) In a proper case, the public interest may justify refusal of or carve out from injunction, and an award of damages in lieu. […]
5. v) The starting point of any consideration of the public interest in relation to a remedy after a patent trial is that the patent system as a whole is already criss-crossed with provisions which strike balances between different public interests.
6. vi) The availability of an exclusionary injunction is an important manifestation of the monopolistic nature of a patent right. While monopolies in general are against the public interest, once a patent has been found valid and infringed, the patent monopoly is something which it is in the public interest to protect by an injunction in order to further the purposes of the system as a whole, such as to promote investment in innovation.
7. vii) Therefore when […] various public interests are engaged and pull in different directions, one should have in mind that the legislator is better equipped than the courts to examine these issues and draw the appropriate broad balance. The jurisdiction to refuse or qualify a patent injunction on public interest grounds is not there to redraw the broad balance of public interests set by Parliament in the patent system. The power should be used sparingly and in limited circumstances.¹⁴⁴

The courts have, in an appropriate case, been prepared to grant an injunction that extends beyond the lifetime of the patent in order to deprive the defendant of the “springboard” from which it had benefited by infringement during the patent’s lifetime.¹⁴⁵

The courts also have the ability to tailor injunctive relief to the nature of the case. For example, in cases where the patentee is under an obligation to grant licenses on FRAND terms, the injunction may be expressed to lapse if the defendant enters into a license on the terms that the court has held to be FRAND.¹⁴⁶ Conversely, because the grant of an injunction is an exercise of the court’s discretion, the courts have, in appropriate cases, been prepared to refuse or limit a final injunction following a finding of infringement and substitute an award of damages in lieu of the injunction.