In the intensely fought litigation between the parties involving use of identical PRIUS mark/name, Supreme Court fired the final salvo on 14th December 2017 by holding that it is necessary to establish local goodwill and reputation of the trade mark to sustain an action for passing off. The court affirmed the decision of two judge…

Recently, two different judges of the Delhi High Court while being asked to consider prayer for declaration of a mark as well known took completely different stand. The marks involved were: SAMSUNG and its oval shape device  Christian Louboutin’s ‘RED SOLE’ for shoes  The proprietors of above-mentioned trademarks sought relief to declare their trademarks as well-known…

In an interesting dispute, Mattel, Inc., owner of the brand name BARBIE sought to seek an injunction for use of the mark BARBIE being used in a song of a movie Tera Intezaar. It was alleged by Mattel that the title and lyrics of the song used its registered and well known trademark “BARBIE” without…

Quite often than not, IP cases result in settlement soon after injunction application is decided. In many cases an exparte interim injunction coupled with search and seizure (through local Commissioner) at the manufacturing unit of the infringing party results in sufficient pressure on the party to negotiate settlement. As a part of settlement, the Defendant…

This post highlights challenges in enforcing descriptive marks. The marketers are of course more in favour of adopting descriptive marks given the consumer appeal and brand recall. On the other hand IP legal team would recommend staying away from descriptive words to be used as brands. The Court in this case was considering an injunction…

All Well Formulations (AWF), the defendant, aggrieved by the injunction order passed against them by the Additional City Civil and Sessions Judge, Bengaluru City, has filed the appeal before the Karnataka High Court. The Plaintiff Swati & Co (Swati) filed the action against AWF for infringement of trademark, design, passing off, etc. The High Court…

The interesting issue in this case was whether the Plaintiff can invoke territorial jurisdiction of Delhi High court considering the Defendants were based in United Arab Emirates offering for sale their goods and services through App Store, Google Play Store and e-commerce portals such as www.amazon.in. The case concerns use of the mark ifit/IFIT on fitness…

The parties engaged in imparting educational and training services vie for rights in the mark “TP Turning Point”. The Plaintiff, Turning Point Institute Private Limited (TPIPL) filed the action before the Delhi High Court alleging passing off, damages, etc, against the Defendants, Turning Point (TP) for using an identical mark/name in relation to identical services,…

Bombay High Court recently ruled in a dispute concerning rights over the title of the Plaintiff’s film Veere Di Wedding which in English is stated to mean “My best friend’s wedding” which was alleged to be deceptively similar to the Defendant’s film title Veere Ki Wedding. The competing titles do convey the same meaning and…

The Delhi High Court recently set aside the interim injunction granted in favour of Columbia Sportswear Company (Columbia Sportswear) and allowed Galaxy Footwear Pvt. Ltd. (Galaxy) to use COLUMBIA mark for footwear. The court in its ruling appears to have taken a narrow view of global reputation of COLUMBIA brand and spill over of reputation…