The case has been brought to Stockholm's District Court, with the UK label converter demanding an immediate stop to the infringement. Alongside calling for all stocks of the "infringing" product to be destroyed, and demanding a SEK 500,000 penalty should its request be ignored, Denny has requested SEK6m in damages for documented losses.
Bury St Edmunds-based Denny Bros holds the worldwide rights to license the original Fix-a-Form multi-page folding label system, developed in the 1970s. It says Nordvall has "copied" the Fix-a-Form label design and used the product in sales to pharmaceutical manufacturers in Sweden, resulting in "substantial" losses both for Fix-a-Form in Sweden and CCL Label in Denmark, the licensee.
Andrew Denny, md of Denny Bros Group's licensing company Fix-a-Form International, says: "We will not tolerate infringement of Fix-a-Form patents. We want to protect our patents, because we and our partners have invested considerable resources in developing the folding label concept.
"We have developed our folding labels to ensure pharmaceutical companies, among others, can meet the legal requirement for important, comprehensive consumer information to be always included on pharmaceutical products.
"If the sector has its patents infringed, there will be no incentive to develop new medical products for the benefit of public health and the same is true for other industries."
