HC-2013-000089 - [2025] EWHC 2376 (Ch)

The claimant in these proceedings, Merck, is the successor to a family business under the name of E. Merck, which started as an apothecary’s shop in Darmstadt, Germany in 1668. The business was very successful and grew over the years, establishing its own manufacturing facilities and expanding to various other countries. In the late 1800s a member of the Merck family established another business in the USA, which was initially economically supported by the German Merck business. The American business was incorporated as Merck & Co, Inc, and the present defendants are the successors to that business. The American business also became very successful and expanded its operations outside the USA.

Following the confiscation of property that took place as a result of the First World War, the American business became an independent company, but the two businesses cooperated over the use of the word “Merck”. Broadly speaking, that word was used by the American business in the USA and Canada, and by the original German business in the rest of the world. In 1932 the companies entered into a formal agreement along those lines, but it was challenged by the US Department of Justice as being contrary to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and was cancelled in 1945 by a consent decree in the New Jersey District Court.

In 1953 Merck & Co, Inc merged with Sharp & Dohme. By then both the American and German companies were multinational businesses, and both were seeking to develop their businesses globally using the Merck trade mark.