SUN PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIES LIMITED v. MEGHMANI LIFESCIENCES LIMITED
Deceptive Similarity in Pharmaceutical Trademarks - Application of the "Possibility of Confusion" Test and the Rule Against Dissection of Marks.
Court: Bombay High Court
Citation: 2026:BHC-OS:9214-DB
Decision Date: 08-04-2026
List of Laws
The Trade Marks Act, 1999; Intellectual Property Law - Trademark Infringement and Passing Off; Pharmaceutical Trademark Jurisprudence; Letters Patent of the High Court
- Facts: The Appellant, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., is the registered proprietor of the trademark 'RACIRAFT', used for a pharmaceutical preparation containing Sodium Alginate, Sodium Bicarbonate, and Calcium Carbonate to treat heartburn. The mark was coined by combining 'RACI' and 'RAFT' (referring to the 'raft' formation of the drug in the stomach). In February 2025, the Appellant discovered that the Respondent was marketing an identical medicinal product under the mark 'ESIRAFT'. The Appellant filed a commercial suit for trademark infringement and passing off, alleging that 'ESIRAFT' is visually, structurally, and phonetically deceptively similar to 'RACIRAFT'. While an initial ad-interim relief was granted, a Single Judge later vacated the injunction, holding that the marks were not deceptively similar as 'RAFT' is a generic term in the pharmaceutical trade and the prefixes 'RACI' and 'ESI' were distinct.
- Procedural Posture: The Appellant approached the Division Bench of the Bombay High Court challenging the order of the learned Single Judge dated December 23, 2025, which had dismissed the Appellant's interim application and vacated the previous ad-interim injunction.
- Issue: Whether the trademark 'ESIRAFT' is deceptively similar to 'RACIRAFT' in the context of pharmaceutical products, and whether the Single Judge erred in applying the rules of comparison by dissecting the marks rather than viewing them as a whole.
- Holding: Yes, the marks are deceptively similar. The Court set aside the Single Judge's order and allowed the appeal, restoring the injunction against the Respondent.
- Reasoning: The Court reasoned that pharmaceutical trademarks must be judged by a more stringent standard because confusion can lead to disastrous health consequences. Following the principles in "Cadila Health Care Ltd. vs. Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd.", the Court emphasized that marks must be compared as a whole rather than being dissected into syllables. While 'RAFT' might be descriptive of the drug's action, the overall phonetic resonance of 'RACIRAFT' and 'ESIRAFT' is strikingly similar. The Court noted that in a multilingual and diverse society like India, factors such as imperfect recollection and hurried pronunciation by consumers or pharmacists must be considered. The similarity in the phonetic structure, where a hurried utterance could easily lead to one being mistaken for the other, creates a "possibility of confusion" which is sufficient to grant an injunction in medicinal cases.
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