In June 2018, the Appeal Court of Ireland refused to grant a preliminary injunction and held that preliminary injunctions may not be granted when damages are an adequate remedy for the plaintiff and when the defendant is likely to suffer the greater irreparable damage if the preliminary injunction is granted.

The Supreme Court in this case decided that patent holders do not have an automatic right to a permanent injunction in case of patent infringement. Instead, the decision whether or not to grant an injunction or an alternative remedy has to be decided on a case-by-case basis taking into account a traditional four-factor test.

The Canadian Federal Court granted a limited injunction that prevented the defendant from any further marketing activity for an infringing product but allowed the selling of the same infringing product to patients in the absence of an alternative supplier. The decision is important for the treatment of patent holders that do not use their invention (“non-practicing entities”).