The Madras High Court on Monday (July 20) passed an interim order for restraining Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali from using the word ‘Coronil’ to promote its immunity-booster drug.
The order was passed by a single-Judge bench of Justice CV Karthikeyan, in a petition filed by Chennai’s Arudra Engineering Private Limited, which had registered ‘CORONIL-92 B’ as a trademark in 1993.
The plaintiff-company had approached the High Court contending that ‘CORONIL-92 B’ was its registered trademark since 1993 for “Acid inhibitor for industrial cleaning” used as chemical preparations in industries.
The court observed that “The name used by the defendant is the same. The spelling is same.”
Senior Advocate PR Rama, appearing for the Company, submitted that protection has to 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 a mark identical to the trade mark already registered, irrespective of the fact, whether the business is similar or not, under Section 29(4)(b) of the Trademarks Act, 1999.
It was also submitted to the court that Patanjali’s ‘Coronil’ is recent and that its effectiveness is still being evaluated in States like Uttarakhand. Several complaints were made against the drug. There is no knowledge of their clinical trial and the drug was banned in many states of the country.
“The Plaintiff had registered the trade mark owing to the fact that their products which is in liquid form is used by heavy industrial machinery industries to prevent corrosion and to reduce the depreciation in the value of the units during the cleaning process. The list of customer companies shows that huge industrial units like BHEL, NTPC Limited, Reliance industrial Ltd., Indian Oil Corporation and other such companies are the clients of the plaintiff,” the court noted.
“It is seen that the Plaintiff has a registered trademark Coronil and the registration is still exists. Once the plaintiff has a registered trademark, protection has to be given from infringement. The law is clear on that aspect. The defendant has also claimed that he is going to market his product in the same name ‘Coronil’. The defendant can also 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,” the court observed.
Therefore, the High Court has granted temporary injunction in favour of the Plaintiff-company till July 30.
– India Legal Bureau