Bombay High Court Injuncts Use Of 'LIVOGEM', Finds Prima Facie Infringement Of P&G's LIVOGEN Trademark

The Bombay High Court has recently granted an interim injunction in favour of Procter & Gamble Health Limited and its German affiliate, restraining the use of a rival mark found to be deceptively similar to their registered trademarks “LIVOGEN” and “LIVOGEN-Z”.

On March 17, 2026, Justice Sharmila U. Deshmukh held that the plaintiffs had made out a prima facie case of trademark infringement against Horizon Bioceuticals Pvt. Ltd. and Curewell Drugs & Pharmaceuticals Pvt. Ltd. over their adoption of the mark “LIVOGEM”.

“Even accepting for the sake of arguments that the prefix LIVO is common to the trade and descriptive, and regard is to be had to the uncommon element GEN vs GEM, even on that count the defence would not succeed by reason of visual and phonetic similarity between the uncommon elements. The Defendants have merely replaced the last alphabet “N” by “M” and there is strong possibility of them being pronounced similarly,” the court observed.

Procter & Gamble Health Limited and P&G Health Germany GMBH filed the interim application seeking to restrain the defendants from using the mark “LIVOGEM”, alleging infringement of their registered trademark “LIVOGEN”, which has been used in India since 1967, and “LIVOGEN-Z”.

The plaintiffs contended that the rival mark is visually and phonetically similar to their registered mark and that in the case of medicinal and pharmaceutical products even the slightest possibility of confusion must be prevented in public interest.

Horizon Bioceuticals, in its defence, claimed that the mark “LIVOGEM” was honestly coined in 1997 as a combination of “LIVO” indicating liver health and “GEM” denoting high quality, and that the prefix “LIVO” is common to the trade.

Rejecting the defence, the court held that the rival marks must be compared as a whole and that “LIVOGEN” and “LIVOGEM” are visually and phonetically similar, with the defendants having merely replaced the last letter “N” with “M”.

The court further held that a prima facie case of infringement was made out and that the defendants' claim of use since 2012 could not tilt the balance of convenience in their favour, particularly when it was not shown that they had taken the elementary precaution of searching the trade mark registry before adopting the mark.

The court accordingly granted an interim injunction restraining the defendants, their agents and associates from using the mark “LIVOGEM” or any other mark identical or deceptively similar to the plaintiffs' registered trademarks pending final disposal of the suit.

However, the court declined to grant relief for passing off at this stage, observing that the material on record did not establish misrepresentation and that the rival products had sufficient distinctions in packaging, making the issue one to be decided at trial.