Smith Kline & French Laboratories Ltd v Attorney-General - [1989] 1 NZLR 385

Administrative law — Judicial review — Ministerial approval — Use of confidential information — Distribution of medicine — Minister of Health approved in 1977 distribution of plaintiff's medicine Tagamet and in 1987 approved distribution of a competitor's generic medicine Cytine — Whether Minister owed a duty of confidence to plaintiff not to use information about Tagamet in approving Cytine — Whether Minister was in breach of that duty — Whether Minister in approving Cytine was entitled to use information gained about Tagamet and abridge procedure for approval or was obliged to require competitor to provide that information — Medicines Act 1981, ss 20, 21 and 22.

Patents — Infringements — Towards end of a medicine's patent protection period, a rival pharmaceutical company applied to Minister of Health for approval to distribute a generic medicine and supplied a sample — Inventor of the drug claimed infringement of patent — Whether Minister infringed patent by requesting and receiving a sample — Whether rival company infringed patent by importing and supplying a sample.