Adcock Ingram has been barred by an order from selling and distributing its newly launched painkilling drug, Lenbucod, which the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) found infringed Aspen’s Mybucod trademark rights.

A Business Day report says Aspen took Adcock to court after the latter launched Lenbucod in January, arguing that the name was confusingly similar to Mybucod and amounted to a trademark infringement.

Aspen registered it in 2008 and has been using it for 17 years.

Adcock opposed the application, contending that Aspen’s trademark was invalid and should not have been registered, as ‘Bucod’ was allegedly a non-distinctive, descriptive term derived from the name of the active ingredients: ibuprofen and codeine.

The court dismissed Adcock’s argument, prohibiting the company from using ‘Lenbucod’ or any confusingly similar mark in relation to the relevant goods, saying Aspen registered its trademark in 2008 and used it for 17 years without interference or challenge.

The court also ordered the destruction of all materials bearing the infringing mark.

‘The example tendered by the respondents is inapposite in the present case. Bucod is an entirely contrived term, the origin or meaning of which is not readily apparent without either the specialist knowledge of a pharmacist or competitor such as the respondent,’ the judgment reads.

‘It is highly unlikely that a consumer would over the last 17 years, and absent any similarly named competitor product, have made the association with the pharmacological ingredients rather than the applicants as the owners of the trademark and sellers of the product.’

Full Business Day report

Judgment