Chemical Elements, INNs and the Names of Persons

In one line

Nobody may register the name of a chemical element or an international non-proprietary name, and nobody may register a mark falsely suggesting a connection with a living person without that person's consent.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: section 13 prohibits the registration of any word which is the commonly used and accepted name of any single chemical element or any single chemical compound, as distinguished from a mixture, in respect of a chemical substance or preparation, or which is declared by the World Health Organisation and notified by the Registrar as an international non-proprietary name, or which is deceptively similar to such a name; and section 14 empowers the Registrar, where an application is for a mark which falsely suggests a connection with any living person, or a person whose death took place within twenty years prior to the date of the application, to require the consent in writing of that person or of the legal representative of the deceased, and to refuse to proceed unless it is furnished.

Section 13: chemical elements and INNs

The two limbs.

(a) A word which is the commonly used and accepted name of any single chemical element or any single chemical compound (as distinguished from a mixture) in respect of a chemical substance or preparation.

(b) A word declared by the World Health Organisation and notified in the prescribed manner by the Registrar from time to time as an international non-proprietary name, or which is deceptively similar to such name.

And the tail, which is the part students forget. Any such registration shall be deemed for the purpose of section 57 to be an entry made in the register without sufficient cause or an entry wrongly remaining on the register, as the circumstances may require. So the Act supplies the rectification ground ready made.

What an international non-proprietary name is. The World Health Organisation assigns a single generic name to each pharmaceutical substance so that the substance can be identified unambiguously anywhere in the world: paracetamol, ibuprofen, amoxicillin. The name belongs to nobody and is used by everybody.

Why the prohibition. If one manufacturer could register the INN, every other maker of the same substance would be unable to say what he was selling, and a doctor prescribing by the generic name would be prescribing one company's product. The public interest here is a health interest, and it is why the prohibition is absolute rather than curable by use.

Note the words "as distinguished from a mixture" in limb (a). The name of a single element or compound is barred; the name of a mixture is not, and a coined name for a formulation is registrable.