Local court rejects Cutis-Biotech’s trademark-violation lawsuit against SII over ‘Covishield’

A local court has rejected an application seeking an injunction against the use of ‘Covishield’ as a brand name by Serum Institute of India (SII), the company said.

SII is producing a coronavirus vaccine named Covishield, co-developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca. The Indian government has purchased 11 million doses of Covishield vaccine.

On January 4, Cutis-Biotech, a pharma firm, filed a suit in the civil court claiming it was a prior user of the brand name Covishield and sought to restrain SII from using the name.

SII had told the court that the two companies operate in different product categories and there is no scope for confusion over the trademark.

“Court has rejected the application,” said Hitesh Jain, SII’s lawyer.

Advocate Aditya Soni, the lawyer of Cutis-Biotech, said the order copy was not yet available, but operative order was read out in the court. “We will file an appeal against the order in the high court,” he said.