Opinion ID: 380310
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Balance of Equity

Text: 59 The record on which the district court acted is almost totally devoid of equities favoring Premo. It undertook the manufacture and sale of a patented product while the patent, never successfully challenged, still prohibited such activity. In the course of this undertaking, Premo could have chosen a dosage form other than powder contained in a gelatin capsule. Even if it chose a powder and capsule dosage form, a vast number of single or bi-color capsule combinations other than those chosen were available for selection. In light of these factors, Premo's implausible suggestion that the choice of a maroon and white gelatin capsule was made for functional reasons was not credited by the trial court. Even now it is not enjoined from marketing the combination drug covered by the expired SKF patent in a dosage form different from DYAZIDE. The only answer that Premo made when confronted with these factors was, in essence, that it could compete more effectively in the diuretic market if it could use the same maroon and white capsule color adopted by SKF for DYAZIDE. Probably it could compete better still if it could appropriate the same trade name. But neither appropriation has the look, sound or feel of equity. Therefore, the trial court did not err in concluding that the competing equities favored preliminary injunctive relief for SKF.