This case emphasizes the clean hands doctrine vis-à-vis trademark law. The plaintiffs claimed that they adopted and coined the trademark “Forzest” in 2003. Subsequently, the defendant had filed an application for the mark “Folzest,” and both parties were operating in the same class of goods and services. The plaintiffs emphasised that since the suit pertained to pharmaceutical goods, the threshold of confusion was low. This resulted in the deceptive similarity test becoming stringent and public interest becoming paramount.

In response to the plaintiff’s contention that their trademark had been infringed, the Defendant asserted that certain material facts were concealed by the plaintiff from the court. The Defendant was a leading manufacturer in the industry, a registered proprietor of the mark “Zest” and had a family of trademarks registered with “Zest” forming a part of them.

The Court held that the Plaintiff must come with clean hands while approaching the Court, putting forth all facts without any concealment. However, it is interesting to note that even though the Court deemed that there was no candid disclosure by the Plaintiff, the case was not dismissed at the threshold. This was primarily due to the fact that it pertained to pharmaceutical goods.

Pharmaceutical goods require the larger public interest to be taken into account and not just the rights of the private litigants. In such cases, even a remote possibility that there would be a likelihood of deception can led to disastrous consequences. Therefor despite not approaching the Court with clean hands, the Plaintiff was entitled to an ad-interim relief on the basis that they were the prior users and the two marks were deceptively similar.