JAMAICA
Joanne Wood and Roxanne Miller
DunnCox
CHAnGInG tIMEs
Th e Jamaican courts have decided several important matters in the past year,
costs incurred by local distributors if it loses an appeal against the Supreme
and with amendments to the country’s Copyright Act in the pipeline, legal
Court’s ruling. Th e court found that Pfi zer’s patented medication, which
practitioners and companies have much to consider.
is sold under the brand name NORVASC and is used to treat high blood
pressure, heart failure, stroke, renal failure and other vascular complications
Pfi zer Limited v. Medimpex Jamaica Limited, et al
due to hypertension, is invalid.
In a landmark ruling on April 29, 2009, the Supreme Court held that the
Jamaican patent for Salts of Amlodipine (used in hypertension medicine),
Th e judgment has been stayed until the Court of Appeal hears the case.
issued to an attorney for Pfi zer, was invalid because the Egyptian patent for
the product had expired. HBo acts against piracy
Th e historic decision was the fi rst time a case under the Patent Act of 1857
DunnCox assisted HBO Latin America Group, a subsidiary of cable content
has been heard in Jamaica. It concerned an interpretation of Section 29 of
provider Home Box Offi ce, in successfully blocking the unlawful broadcast
the law, which states that a patent granted in Jamaica expires on the fi rst and distribution of its HBO and Cinemax programmes by local subscriber
expiration of a patent for the same product owned by the applicant in any television providers (STVs).
other country. To avoid the inevitable consequence of Section 29, on the
strength of early common law cases, it has been the practice for many years
HBO lodged a formal complaint with the Broadcasting Commission, the
for attorneys to apply for a grant of patent as a ‘communicatee from abroad’.
regulator of STV licences, which issued a directive on August 26, 2009
On obtaining the Jamaican patent, the attorney assigns it to the owner, who requiring that all unauthorised broadcasts of the HBO and Cinemax signals
then has the benefi t of the full 14-year term. by STVs in violation of their licences ‘cease and desist’. Th is development
has implications for all STV providers in Jamaica that previously simply
Th e parties have been in court since 2002. An injunction was granted in 2005
unscrambled and pirated the US domestic signal without any permission
against local distributors forcing them to take competing products off the market
until trial. In exchange, Pfi zer was required to give a corresponding undertaking
from the owner of the copyright in the content.
that it would pay any losses incurred by the distributors if it lost the case.
HBO now requires STVs to negotiate and enter into legitimate licensing
Apart from the loss of its patent rights, research indicates that Pfi zer stands
arrangements for its HBO Caribbean product suite, which is designed
to pay in excess of $6 million in compensation for loss of sales since 2005 and specifi cally for the region’s market.
106 World Intellectual Property Review Digest 2009 www.worldipreview.com
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