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2004 Supreme(Del) 678

High Court Of Delhi
REDDYS LABORATORIES LTD - Appellant
Versus
REDDY PHARMACEUTICALS LIMITED - Respondent
.
Decided On : 08/26/2004

Advocates Appeared:
A.N.HAKSAR, HEMANT SINGH, Neel Mason, RAJIV NAYAR, Shweta Prasad

Headnote:Intellectual Property Rights – pass off – Section 2 of Copyright Act, 1957, Sections 12 (3), 34 and 35 of Trade and Merchandise Marks Act, 1958 and Section 151 and Order 39 Rules 1, 2 and 4 of Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 – plaintiff acquired substantial trade reputation and goodwill in trade mark Dr. Reddy – defendant by adopting trade mark Reddy on its pharmaceutical preparations trying to encash upon trade reputation and goodwill of plaintiff company – trade mark adopted by defendant with view to mislead customers – defendant may pass off inferior products to consumers – plaintiff likely to suffer irreparable loss – ad interim injunction granted.

R. C. CHOPRA, J.

( 1 ) THIS order shall dispose of IA No. 11847/2003 under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure and IA No. 302/2004 under Order XXXIX Rule 4 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

( 2 ) THE facts relevant for the disposal of these two applications, briefly stated, are that the plaintiff, a Company engaged in the manufacture and sale of pharmaceutical products for the last over 19 years and having even overseas operations is marketing its products under the trade mark "dr. Reddy s". The plaintiff alleges that a logo representing a man with outstretched arms and word mark "dr. Reddy s"was created in April, 2001 which was an original artistic work within the meaning of Section 2 (c) of the Copyright Act. It was formally assigned to the plaintiff in December, 2002 and as such the plaintiff being the proprietor of the copyright is entitled to exclusive use thereof. The plaintiff has already applied for the registration of the trade mark in various countries including India. The registration process in Romania has already been completed. In para 6 of the plaint details of various subsidiaries owned by the plaintiff all over world starting with the name "reddy" or "dr. Reddy" are given and it is stated that the plaintiff exports bulk drugs as well as finished dosages of the formulations to over 100 countries including U. S. A. , Russia and Europen Union. In the year 2002-2003, the exports of the plaintiff were to the tune of Rs. 11,581 million.

( 3 ) IN para 8 of the plaint, names of certain finished pharmaceutical preparations are given which have been developed on account of the research and development facilities established by the plaintiff and it is added that the plaintiff with a turnover of Rs. 6803 million in the branded formulations has ranked 6th in the ORG-MARG rankings for the period ending June, 2003. It is averred that the aforesaid trading style is now synonymous with high quality pharmaceutical preparations worldwide and the trade mark which appears on the packaging of its products and logo of the plaintiff is recognised through the world as a source of origin of the plaintiff s products as well as quality.

( 4 ) ACCORDING to plaintiff, the defendant s "reddy Pharmaceuticals Limited" is a Company which was initially carrying on the business of purchase and supply of bulk drugs. The defendant has been purchasing bulk drugs from the plaintiff also since 1997 but at no stage of time the defendant was manufacturing or marketing its own pharmaceutical preparations. The activities of the defendant were in the nature of distributor/agent only to supply bulk drugs manufactured by the plaintiff to formulators without changing the packing or the label. Therefore, the activities of the defendant were in no way detrimental to the plaintiff and as such no objection was being raised to the use of the name "reddy Pharmaceuticals Limited". On April 1, 2003, the defendant was even appointed a commercial Delcredere agent for a period of one year for marketing the products of the plaintiff in the Northern region. However, in September, 2003, the plaintiff was astonished to learn that the defendant had gone beyond its initial sphere of operations as a mere supplier of bulk drugs and had entered to the field of marketing pharmaceutical preparations in finished dosages under different brands taking advantage of the goodwill that had been earned by the plaintiff s trade mark "dr. Reddy". The defendant started using the trade mark "reddy" in relation to its pharmaceutical preparations since August, 2003 and started approaching the prospective distributors/agents and misrepresenting that the defendant was a part of the Reddy Group. A perusal of the packing material of the products marketed by the defendant also demonstrated the dishonest intentions of the defendant inasmuch as the defendant had deliberately adopted the packing style in such a way so as to make a consumer
















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