The Hindu Business Line : A check on chain counterfeiting

IT IS no secret that popular products get counterfeited with impunity. One of the affected companies was TI Diamond Chain and it approached the Delhi High Court to seek remedy for infringement of intellectual property rights.

The complaint was that one Santhokh Singh was selling, using identical packing material, the company's products such as chains with its trademark Diamond/ Diamond Super, registered in 1942.

TI stated that Singh ``procured inferior quality of chain material and used chains from the local market and reconditioned'' them.

It argued that Singh's product and that of the company would not seem different from each other to the naked eye, though the products Singh sold were of poor quality; also that he was selling his products in a clandestine manner without issuing any cash memo or voucher.

TI stated there was a deliberate and dishonest intention on Singh's part to manufacture and market spurious products bearing the identical trademark and copyright of TI.

``An infringement of its registered trademark as well as infringement of the copyright and that by such use an impression is being created in the minds of the purchasers that the defendant is marketing the products of the plaintiffs whereas the defendant is neither a stockist nor an authorised person to manufacture the products of the plaintiffs under the trademark Diamond of the plaintiffs.''

The company submitted that its trademark registration was ``still valid and subsisting'' duly renewed from time to time. It was not only the registered proprietor of the trademark but also ``the absolute owner of the copyright which subsists in the original art work of the said packing material.''

Queerly, Singh pleaded innocence, stating that he was illiterate. He procured work from other companies, and ``at some time would allow the goods of others to be stored in shop.''

Also, he said he dealt with packing the material of various companies. As he was ``uneducated'', he said he did not know that the work he undertookamounted to infringement. However, he categorically stated that he ``would never infringe the goods of the plaintiff''.

Justice H.R. Malhotra ruled in favour of TI, by granting a decree for perpetual injunction against the defendant for infringement of their trademark, copyright and also a decree for passing off.

``The defendant himself, his servants, agents, dealers shopkeepers and all other persons acting on his behalf are restrained from manufacturing, selling, offering for sale and distributing chain packet kit for use in automobiles under the trademark Diamond, both device and words, Diamond Super or any other trademark, which is identical with or deceptively similar to the plaintiff's trademark amounting to infringement,'' said the court.

Apart from directing Singh to deliver to TI, ``offending material, label, stationary material, other printing blacks, dies, bearing the trademark Diamond for purposes of destruction and/or obliteration'' the court also insisted that Singh render accounts of profits made by him using TI's trademark and packing material.

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