Dr. Mubin Akhtar Hospital: application to revoke a registered trade mark

• Whether an application under sections 73(4) and 80(4) can be made to the High Court.
• Whether a suit or proceeding concerning the mark was already pending in the High Court.

• Under section 73(4), an application to revoke goes to the Registrar. It can go to the High Court only if proceedings about the mark are already pending there (Royal PVC (Pvt.) Ltd. v. Registrar of Trade Marks, 2011 CLD 833).
• Section 80(4), read with section 116, works the same way for invalidation. As a Division Bench put it, “the intent of sub-section (4) of sections 73 and 80 is to avoid conflicting decisions by different forums” (H&B General Trading Company v. International Marketing Company, 2009 CLD 1028).
• The pending suit the applicants relied on concerned a stake in a company, not the trade mark, and the suit just returned for the IP Tribunal could not count as pending.
• The court noted, but did not decide, the argument that the IP Tribunal has taken the place of the High Court for these applications.

Laws and rules

• Trade Marks Ordinance, 2001: sections 73(4), 80(4) and 116
• Trade Marks Rules, 2004
• Code of Civil Procedure, 1908: Order VII, Rule 10
• Sindh Chief Court Rules (O.S.): Rule 119

Cases referred to

• Royal PVC (Pvt.) Ltd. v. Registrar of Trade Marks, 2011 CLD 833
• H&B General Trading Company v. International Marketing Company, 2009 CLD 1028
• Shaheen Chemist v. Zahid Mehmood Chaudhry, 2023 CLD 1 (noted, not decided)