[I-Site v. Eye Site] “Phonetic Identity” An Important Index To Test Deception: Delhi High Court Grants Relief To Sun Pharma

[26 April 2022] The Delhi High Court has observed that the phonetic identity or similarity is an important index of similarity or deceptive similarity of one mark against the other competing mark and that the tests of phonetic, visual and structural similarity or identity are disjunctive and not conjunctive. Justice Jyoti Singh was dealing with a suit for permanent injunction filed by Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Limited concerning it’s trademark, prominently displayed on the website www.sunpharma.com. The plaintiffs are involved in the manufacturing of speciality pharmaceuticals and active pharmaceutical ingredients since the year 1983, having 45 manufacturing sites in 6 continents and 10 world class research centres with over 30,000 strong multi-cultural work force from over 50 different nationalities. It was stated that in order to protect its right in the SUN (Device) mark, trademark registrations were obtained in India as well as in a few foreign jurisdictions. It was claimed that the Plaintiff was the first owner of Copyright in the SUN (Device) having exclusive right to use the same under sec. 14 of the Copyright Act.