Amritdhara Pharmacy v. Satya Deo Gupta — Trademark Case Law

Citation & Court

Amritdhara Pharmacy v. Satya Deo Gupta, AIR 1963 SC 449 : [1963] 2 SCR 484, Supreme Court of India, decided 27 April 1962.

The Dispute

Amritdhara Pharmacy's medicine "Amritdhara," on the market since 1901 and already a registered trademark, opposed Satya Deo Gupta's 1950 application to register "Lakshmandhara" for a similar biochemical medicinal preparation marketed since 1923, alleging likelihood of deception and passing-off.

What the Court Held

The Supreme Court found the two marks sufficiently similar for goods of the same description, but its lasting significance is the test it applied to reach that conclusion: whether an ordinary purchaser of average intelligence and imperfect recollection — not an expert making a careful, side-by-side comparison — would be likely to confuse the two marks. On the specific facts, given established concurrent use, the Court restored the Registrar's order permitting limited registration in Uttar Pradesh rather than a nationwide grant.

How to Use This in Your Reply

Cite this whenever an opposing party argues that a careful consumer would never confuse the two marks on close inspection. The legal test does not assume close inspection — it assumes an average buyer relying on imperfect memory of the earlier mark, which is a materially easier standard for an opponent to meet than "would an expert mix these up side by side."

Key takeaway: Confusion is judged by an ordinary buyer's imperfect memory, not a meticulous comparison — a lower bar than many applicants expect.