Law:

Section:

This is an application under section 31 of the Patents and Designs Act, 1911, read with Order 39, rule 2 and section 151, C.P.C. through which the plaintiffs pharmaceutical companies seek restraint against the defendants as regards manufacturing, importing, selling, stocking or marketing any drug or medicine containing ranitidine/ranitidine hydrochloride under the trade name Melfax or any other name. In the suit to which such application pertains plaintiff No.1 ;claims to be the parent company of a group of companies (Glaxo) which are engaged in the discovery, development, manufacture and marketing of safe and effective medicines of high quality. Glaxo is claimed to be one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies spending huge amounts in research and development. Plaintiff No.2 is stated to be a subsidiary of the plaintiff No.1 whereas plaintiff No 3 also a subsidary, is registered and functioning in Pakistan It is maintained that the plaintiffs Nos.l and 2 have patented ranitidine/ranitidine hydrochloride in a large number of countries and in Pakistan patents numbers 126632 and 128137 stand duly registered in favour of the plaintiffs. The brand name given to such invention is Zantac under which name the product is marketed and sold by Glaxo in many countries around the world. The drug is, inter alia, prescribed for duodenal ulcers. The defendant No.l was found to be importing/manufacturing/selling a drug containing ranitidine as its hudrochloride under the name Melfax. The defendant was duly noticed and subsequently when it failed to desist from violating the plaintiffs' patent rights the present suit was filed. Defendant No.2 represents a sales outlet of the first defendant.

On being served, the defendants, have preferred a counter-claim for revocation of the above-referred patents. The grounds for revocation, inter alia, are that the two patents involve basically the same formula and specifications, no inventive process was involved therein, the plaintiffs were not the persons entitled for the patents, the product being manufactured locally and sold in the open market in Pakistan since long, the plaintiffs' pricing was exorbitant, other manufactures were engaged in' marketing of identical products from whom the defendants were in,turn importing the same and, finally, because the plaintiff had acquiesced in the contraventions, if any. Defences to the interim relief sought by the plaintiffs are also essentially, similar.