Madras High Court Rules Against a Relief to Cipla Over the Infringement of their Trademark RESPULES

A judgment from Madras High Court recently ruled against the remedies claimed by the pharmaceutical company Cipla for the infringement of their trademark “RESPULES”, a trademark used for capsules in liquid form used for nebulisation in respiratory illnesses. The case involved another pharmaceutical company, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, which started using a similar sign, “Respules”, with the only distinction of using lower case letters.

Cipla claimed that the term “RESPULES” did not exist as a word in the English dictionary and that due to its registration as a trademark in 2002, it should be entitled to be protected, claiming damages against Sun Pharmaceutical for the alleged infringement of the sign.

However, Sun Pharmaceutical claimed that “RESPULES” lacked distinctive character and declared that the term was descriptive, “RESPULES” being a combined acronym of the words “Respiratory” and “Capsules”. Referring to various precedents in the caselaw, the Madras High Court accepted the defendant’s counterclaims and did not restrain Sun Pharmaceuticals from using the sign “RESPULES”.