No SC relief to Ranbaxy on controversial commercial

The Supreme Court today refused to give any relief to pharma major Ranbaxy Laboratories that is seeking permission to air its advertisement which allegedly disparaged "Moov", the pain reliever brand belonging to its rival group Paras Pharmaceuticals.

The Gujarat High Court, while allowing Ahmedabad-based Paras' appeal, had restrained Ranbaxy from airing its advertisement related to Volini, "its largest selling topical pain reliever in India," in its present form and asked it to change the colour of the pack different from the Moov pack.

A bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan while declining to stay the high court order said the matter would be taken up in due course.

Ranbaxy has challenged the high court's order that restrained it from telecasting its Volini TV commercial, which Paras alleged disparaged or denigrated directly or indirectly while referring to its brand Moov, thus infringing its copyright and trademark.

Submitting that the high court failed to appreciate that comparative advertising was an exception to the infringement of trademarks, the petitioner said the order was contrary to and at variance with the well established principles and settled law of comparative advertising, infringement of trademarks under the Trade Marks Act 1999 and Copyright and Unfair Trade Practices.

"The impugned order, if allowed to continue, would lead to irreparable harm and injury to the petitioner apart from curtailing the right of the petitioner to broadcast a perfectly legitimate advertisement," the petition filed by Shroff & Co said.

"The high court failed to appreciate that the advertisement is just a symbolic comparison with other non-existent products and does not reflect any product of the respondent... The purport of the advertisement was merely to claim that their Volini product is better than another product in the market, which is within the limits of honest comparative advertising," it stated.

Ranbaxy further said the high court ignored the fact that Paras had no exclusive proprietary right on the colour violet. Paras, while objecting to the commercial, had alleged that Ranbaxy had indulged in unfair trade practices by attempting to show that its product Volini was superior to Moov.