Madras High Court: C. V. Karthikeyan, J., granted temporary injunction and restrained “Patanjali” from using the word ‘CORONIL’ as the plaintiff has the the same registered as a trademark as early as 1993.
Plaintiff has registered the trademark ‘CORONIL- 92 B’ as a product of Acid inhibitor for industrial cleaning, chemical preparations for industrial use.
P.R. Raman, Senior counsel for the petitioner pointed out that the plaintiff has established substantial reputation in marketing their product Coronil and therefore, they have an inherent and statutory right for its protection of their registered trademark, owing to the extensive clientele they have across the country.
Defendant laid claims to have prepared a medicine and named it ‘Coronil’ and stated that successful clinical trials had been conducted for cure of the Corona Virus.
Senior Counsel for the petitioner placed reliance on Section 29(4) of the Trademarks Act, 1999 and urged that protection shall be granted whenever a registered trademark is infringed by a person who is not a registered proprietor and uses in the course of his trade mark identical to the trade mark already registered, irrespective of the fact, whether the business is similar or not.
Decision
Bench stated that the plaintiff has a registered trademark Coronil and the registration still subsists. Once the plaintiff has a registered trademark, protection has to be given from infringement.
Defendant claimed that he is going to market his product in the same name ‘Coronil’. The defendant can market their product, but they have to use a different name. They cannot infringe upon the right accrued to the plaintiff owing to the registration of the trademark Coronil as early as 1993, which registration still subsists.
Hence in view of the above, defendant was granted interim injunction restraining the defendant or anyone associated with them from infringing the applicant’s registered trademarks bearing the name “Coronil” till 30-07-2020. [Arudra Engineering (P) Ltd. v. Pathanjali Ayurved Ltd., 2020 SCC OnLine Mad 1503 , decided on 17-07-2020]