Patent

In the course of a dispute regarding infringement of the claimant’s patent, the Supreme Court held that the illegality defence had not been engaged by the consideration that the defendant’s lost profits had been made by selling product manufactured in Canada in breach of the claimant’s Canadian patent. A patent was a public grant of state, it did not follow that the public interest was engaged by the breach of the patentee’s rights. There was no public policy that could justify in addition the forfeiture of the defendant’s rights. The infringement of foreign patent rights did not constitute a relevant illegality for the purpose of the defence of ex turpi causa.