5
of the medicine and its pharmacological action. The medical practitioner will not rely
on a vague recollection of the medication. Nor will the pharmacist be confused since
he may sell only on prescription. When he is in doubt he would refer to the script or
back to the medical practitioner. Sales to institutions are usually made on tender,
with detailed specifications of the product tendered for, leaving little room for
confusion. Moreover, in these institutions, such as hospitals, medication is dispensed
on prescription of medical practitioners by pharmacists.
[11]
Furthermore, as far as the patient was concerned, it was said that although he
or she may well know the name of the product he or she was using –
‘he may know that it emanates from some particular source – he may even know that it is a
product from the appellant’s laboratories, but he can make no use of such information. The
patient cannot go to his chemist and insist on being supplied with [the product], he must first
go to the doctor – and even here he cannot insist upon being prescribed [the product]. It is
the doctor’s responsibility as to what the patient should have, and his alone. It follows that
the only sphere in which confusion could arise is on the prescription by the medical
practitioner, and that probability I have eliminated.’
[12]
4
The court below also disposed of the argument advanced by Adcock that for
the purposes of s 10(14) of the Act a comparison should be made of all the goods in
respect of which the competing trade marks were registered. The enquiry, it was
argued, was not limited to a comparison between ZEMAX and ZETOMAX as
prescription medicines, but involved a consideration whether there could be
confusion among a substantial number of notional consumers of ‘pharmaceutical,
veterinary and sanitary preparations; dietetic substances adapted for medicinal use,
food for babies; plasters, materials for dressings; disinfectants’, in respect of which
ZETOMAX was registered. The case Cipla had to meet, the court below found, was
confined to a comparison between hypertensive pharmaceutical products. Since
there was no suggestion in the evidence that Cipla was manufacturing or distributing
any of the other products within the ZETOMAX registration under the ZEMAX trade
mark or that it had ‘the slightest inclination to do so in the future’ the application was
rejected on this basis as well.
4
1983 (2) SA 350 (T) at 363C; [1983] 4 All SA 68 (T) para C11 at 80.