British Leyland Motor Corp. v. Armstrong Patents Co.

British Leyland Motor Corp. v Armstrong Patents Co.
Court	House of Lords
Citation(s)	[1986] 1 A.C. 577, [1986] 1 All E.R. 850
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting	Lord Bridge Lord Templeman Lord Scarman Lord Edmund-Davies Lord Griffiths

British Leyland Motor Corp. v Armstrong Patents Co. is a 1986 decision of the House of Lords concerning the doctrine of non-derogation from grants. This doctrine is comparable to, but somewhat broader than, the doctrine of legal estoppel, assignor estoppel, or estoppel by deed in U.S. law. Under the doctrine of non-derogation from grants, a seller of realty or (after this decision) goods is not permitted to take any action (such as bringing an infringement action) that would lessen the value to the buyer of the thing sold.

The factual context of the Leyland case was that British Leyland (BL), the owner of copyright in drawings of the exhaust pipe of a motor car (the Morris Marina) having sold or authorized the sale of the motor car, sought to use the law against copyright infringement to prevent the aftermarket sale of replacement exhaust pipes to purchasers of those motor cars. British Leyland's cars reproduced the drawings in a three dimensional form. Armstrong copied the exhaust pipes of BL's car and thus indirectly copied the drawings. BL sued Armstrong to enjoin the copying.

BL were successful in the lower courts. The trial judge (Foster, J) and an intermediate appellate judge (Oliver, LJ) rejected Armstrong's concept of implied licence as applied to these exhaust pipes. Consequently, the trial court entered an injunction against Armstrong, which the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice upheld.

The House of Lords allowed the appeal, however, and discharged the injunctions granted by Foster, J; they remitted the cause back to the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice "to do therein as shall be just and consistent with the Judgment of the House of Lords".

The court considered the application of various possible legal doctrines—such as implied licence or "some form of estoppel"—but rejected them in favor of non-derogation. Lord Bridge observed:

It seems to me that when one is considering machinery which is not the subject of any patent protection, it is unnecessary and may be misleading to introduce the concept of an implied licence. The owner of a car must be entitled to do whatever is necessary to keep it in running order and to effect whatever repairs may be necessary in the most economical way possible. To derive this entitlement from an implied licence granted by the original manufacturer seems to me quite artificial. It is a right inherent in the ownership of the car itself.

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