Bajaj Electricals Ltd. v Gourav Bajaj & Anr. (2020)

Case Name

Bajaj Electricals Ltd. v Gourav Bajaj & Anr., 2020, Bombay High Court; suit no. 195/2020

Court Name

Bombay High Court

Bench

(Single Judge) Hon’ble Justice B.P. Colabawalla

Parties

• Plaintiff: Applicant – Bajaj Electricals Ltd
• Defendant: Gourav Bajaj & anr.

Introduction

Intellectual property rights (IPRs) are the statutory rights once granted allows the creator or owner of intellectual property to exclude others from exploiting the same commercially for a given period of time. It allows the creator/ owner to benefit from their work when these are exploited commercially.

A Trademark is a distinctive sign or indicator of some kind that is used by an individual, business organization, or legal entities to uniquely identify the source of its product or service to consumers, and also distinguish its product or services from other entities.

Any person which can be an individual, a company, or a legal entity claiming to be the owner of the trademark can apply. The application can be filed within a few days and you can start using the “TM” symbol

Copyright refers to the legal rights of the owner of intellectual property. Copyright law gives the creator an exclusive right to make copies of creative work usually for a limited time. The creative work may be literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself.

Case Facts

In this case, Bajaj Electricals filed an application at Bombay High Court for an interim injunction against the defendant, an individual who operate two retail electrical appliances stores at Abohar, Punjab. Gourav Bajaj was operating these stores under the trade name of “BAJAJ” as the “APNA BAJAJ STORE” & “BAJAJ EXCELLENT”. The defendant also operates a website under the impugned domain www.apnabajajstore.com . Bajaj electrical in this suit contended that the mark “BAJAJ” has been well known registered trademark/name and is also one of the oldest business groups in India. Also, declare as a well-known trademark by the Bombay High Court in 1987 in the case “BAJAJ ELECTRICALS LIMITED V METALS & ALLIED PRODUCTS AND ANR. AIR 1988”. Even after several notices were sent, the defendant failed to appear in the court.

Prayers

• To pass an ad-interim injunction in the favor of Plaintiff
• To restrain the defendant from using the registered trademark of the plaintiff termed “BAJAJ” in their business, label, and domain label.
• To restrain the defendant from using the registered trademark of the plaintiff for publishing, reproducing, or communicating to the public or using in any manner.

Laws Involved in the case

• Sec 14(c) of Copyright Act 1957 : In the case of artistic work,
  • [1] to reproduce the work in any material form including depiction in three dimensions of a two-dimension work or in two dimension work of a three-dimensional work.
  • [2] To communicate the work to the public
  • [3] to issue copies of the work to the public not being copies already in circulation
  • [4] To include the work in any cinematography film
  • [5] To make any adaptation of the work
  • [6] To do in relation to adoption of the work any of the act specified in relation to the work in sub-clause (1) to (4).
• Sec 14 of Trademark act, 1999: Use of names and representation of living persons or a person recently dead. Where an application is made for the registration of a trademark that falsely shows a connection with any living person or a person whose death took place within 20 years prior to the date of application for registration of the trademark.
• The registrar before he proceeds with the application requires the applicant to furnish him or as the case may be of the legal representative of the deceased person with the connection appearing on the trademark and may refuse to proceed with the application unless the applicant furnishes the registrar with such consent.
• Clause 14 of Letter Patent (Bombay): It said that High Court may grant leave to a person to club two causes of action together, where the court has the jurisdiction to hear one of those causes of action.

Arguments

The plaintiff filed an interim injunction suit against the defendant, restraining him from using the trademark “BAJAJ” which was used by the plaintiff and has acquired the status of a well-known trademark in their business dealings.

The defendant (Gourav Bajaj) operates the business with the trade name “APNA BAJAJ AND BAJAJ EXCELLENT” along with the website domain name www.apnabajajstore.com .Even after several notices, the defendant failed to appear in the court.

Judgement in Bajaj Electricals Ltd. v Gourav Bajaj & Anr.

“I have heard the submission in detail and perused the record. The material produce before me, prima facie shows that the plaintiff’s registered BAJAJ trademark and plaintiff’s said artistic labels and that plaintiff also acquired right in the plaintiff’s registered BAJAJ mark and said artistic label. Prima facie, there is no matter of doubt that the impugned trademark/ name, label, and domain name used in respect of impugned goods/ services of the defendant are nearly identical and, in any event, similarly to the plaintiff’s well-known BAJAJ mark. “

“The plaintiff is been using the name BAJAJ since 1961 and has been a well-known recognized by both courts and by the registry. While examining the defendant’s mark, the registrar cited plaintiff’s mark. These factors support the contention of the plaintiff that the adoption and use by the defendant of the impugned name, trademark, label, and domain name is dishonest.

In these circumstances, a strong prima facie case for the grant of ad-interim relief is made out. Unless the relief prayed for is granted, the plaintiff is likely to suffer injury. Despite notice, none has appeared on behalf of the defendants. The balance of convenience is in favor of the Plaintiff. The plaintiff is also likely to suffer irreparable injury if the defendant’s acts of infringement continue”.

“Thus there will be an ad-interim order in terms of prayer clauses of the interim application”.

                                                   ~ Justice B.P. Colabawalla

This article has been submitted by Yusrah Farooqui from NRI Vidyadayini Institute of Science, management and technology, Bhopal, MP.