Pfizer Inc has been fined $143m (£89m) by an American court for using the name Trovan for its antibiotic trovafloxacin, even though the trademark was already owned by the British company Trovan Ltd, a manufacturer of medical devices based in the Isle of Man. Trovan Ltd and its American licensee, Electronic Identification Devices Ltd, had been using the name Trovan since 1989.
The United States district court at Los Angeles, California, issued a permanent injunction against Pfizer on February 25, instructing the company to cease using the mark with effect from October 16 and to take immediate steps to destroy all existing promotional materials using the name.
Trovafloxacin is not licensed in the United Kingdom and the product had its European marketing authorisation suspended by the European Medicines Evaluation Agency last year (PJ, July 10, 1999, p44).