In the case of pharmaceutical products, the brand name or product name is usually taken from the medication’s use, composition, or any other relevant medical phrase and hence it lacks of distinctiveness. And today in the advancement era, it has become difficult to maintain the uniqueness where thousands of companies are working for the same product. It has become the major issues for registering the trademark in context of the Trademark Act, 1999. Thus, there are certain elements to consider while naming the product.

First of all, there is a requirement for market research of particular disease, allergies and/ or symptoms for making it available, reasonable and affordable. Thereafter, the decision has to be taken for curing the particular disease, allergies and/ or symptoms in the particular and best manner. Before deciding the composition, the conduction of a prior art search and Freedom to Operate search is mandatory for using the particular composition and ingredients. If the result is positive that means it is publicly available for general public. Now, the product has reached for deciding the name at the launching level where the Trademark Search is mandatory in class 5 in public search, list of prohibited marks and international non-proprietary names (names of chemical elements). The Trademark search saves the time and money for any organization. Again, if the result is positive that means the product name is publicly available.

The major elements while conducting the trademark search:

• The name shouldn’t be generic.
• The name shouldn’t describe the substance or specify what it is used for.
• The name shouldn’t be phonetically similar to other registered brands.
• You can add prefix or suffix to the name if there are similar trademark to your name. The purpose of the Trademark is to ensure that the mark is unique and original. Due to the similarities of multiple generic names for pharmaceuticals in the same category, many nurses, physicians, and other practitioners find it difficult to recall or spell common names. Healthcare practitioners ensure that the correct medication is administered to patients by employing unique brans for each pharmaceutical drug.

Further, while filing the trademark application, the specific details of the goods have to be mentioned whether it is for humans or animals; whether the medicine is ayurvedic, homeopathy or veterinary etc to avoid the similarity of the brand name.

After going through the complete procedure, it is clear that Trademarks are important in the pharmaceutical industry. To avoid trademark infringement, a systematic search should be done prior to registration to avoid similar naming and sound-alike pharmaceutical names, whether you’re searching the WIPO Trademark Database or conducting a custom search. A pharmaceutical trademark identifies a drug manufacturer’s success by prohibiting counterfeiting of its products/processes. To summarize, Indian courts are adopting a stricter approach to adjudicating the probability of confusion in pharmaceutical trademarks due to the impact on human life.