Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Saturday, Aug 04, 2007
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Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, Aug 04, 2007 ePaper |
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Corporate
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Courts/Legal Issues Marketing - IPR States - West Bengal Kolkata company restrained from using ‘Eyelex’
Our Legal Correspondent Chennai, Aug. 3 The Madras High Court has issued an order restraining Hahnemann Laboratory Pvt Ltd, Kolkata, from using the mark ‘EYELEX’ in a manner infringing the registered trademark of the Chennai-based Arvind Laboratories, viz ‘EYETEX’. The former company was also restrained from passing off their goods under the name ‘Eyelex’ or any other similar name. Allowing applications from Arvind Laboratories praying for injunction restraining the respondent (Hahnemann Laboratory) from using the mark ‘Eyelex’ for marketing the eye lotion or in any media and use the name in invoices, letter-heads, and so on, which was in anyway visually, phonetically or deceptively similar to the applicant’s trademark ‘Eyetex’, Mr Justice V. Ramasubramanian held that since the proprietor of a registered trademark was entitled to a statutory protection, the balance of convenience was certainly in favour of the plaintiff (Arvind Lab). The applicant contended that legal user certificate issued to them in respect of trademark ‘Eyetex’ showed the said word mark and device mark were registered in respect of ‘beauty specialities for toilet purposes’. The defendant in their affidavit prayed for rejecting the plaint. Quoting an order of the Supreme Court in case No 2004 (28) PTC 121, the Judge ruled that in cases of infringement either of trademark or copyright, normally an injunction must follow and grant of injunction also became necessary if it prima facie appeared that adoption of the mark itself was dishonest. The plaintiff was the registered proprietor of the trademark ‘Eyetex’. The defendant’s mark had a striking phonetic similarity with the trademark of the plaintiff. The plaintiff had been in business for over 50 years and statistics relating to turnover and expenditure on advertisement showed that plaintiff had a reputation in India and use of the mark by defendant would be detrimental to reputation of registered trademark. The defendant had not chosen to come up with any explanation as to how he chose to adopt a similar mark. He had not even chosen to claim that there was any honest concurrent use or that he was entitled to protection under any of the saving clauses.
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