The Calcutta High
Court (HC) has recently granted relief to Arnab Goswami’s AGR Outlier Media
Asianet News Pvt. Ltd. (plaintiff) in passing off lawsuit citing infringement
of Republic TV’s trademark.
The Trademark
Infringement suit had been filed against Shailputri Media
Pvt. Ltd. (defendant) running an internet portal under the domain name
‘www.republichindi.com,’ obtained on May 6, 2017, the same day on which
Goswami’s Republic TV was launched.
The plaintiff told the
HC that even before May 2017 launch, Republic TV was advertised on a nation-wide
basis for many preceding months. Moreover, the trademark for ‘Republic’ was
received on November 20, 2016.
According to these
facts, it was contended that the defendant had copied the trademark of the
plaintiff. The plaintiff claimed that the defendant had used a domain name
similar to Republic TV’s, and also ignored the legal notice sent to the
defendant in this regard.
On the other hand, the
defendant argued that the name of ‘Republic Hindi’ was conceptualized and
implemented by itself. It was also argued that the plaintiff was looking for
monopolizing the use of the term ‘Republic,’ even though it was a generic term
with nothing distinctive in it. To strengthen this argument, the defendant also
made reference to other media outlets using the word ‘Republic’ in their brand
names, like the News Republic, online Republic Malayalam, online Republic –
Tamil, and news republic India. The defendant continued by saying that the
plaintiff doesn’t possess any right over the term ‘Republic’ and thus could not
restrain anyone from using the same. Further, it was claimed that the
defendant’s Republic Hindi portal had also been launched on May 6, 2017. Hence,
the company could not have had any prior information regarding the plaintiff’s
channel, which was also launched on the same day. The defendant then said that
the domain name ‘www.republichindi.com’ was a reliable, concurrent, and
bonafide adoption.
The Court observed the
similarities between the logo of the Republic TV and the Republic Hindi, even
though the two operated on different modes of media. It said that while the
defendant’s claim regarding bonafide adoption of its domain name needs
consideration, there’s nothing on record to clarify that it had conceptualized
‘Republic Hindi.’
The Court also
observed the advertisements of March and April 2017, which show that the
plaintiff had started using the mark many months before the defendant. It means
the public at large was already made aware that the plaintiff would launch a TV
channel under the name and logo of the ‘Republic TV,’ much before the defendant
purchased the domain name ‘www.republichindi.com.’
Given all these facts
and observations, the HC disposed on the plea by saying it found that the
manner in which the term ‘Republic Hindi’ is being used by the defendant, the
mark appears deceptively similar to that used by the plaintiff. Hence, in such
circumstances, there would be an order in terms to provide relief to the
plaintiff.
The plaintiff ARG in
this matter was led before the HC by Senior Counsel Ranjan Bachawat and
Advocate Rajarshi Dutta. While, the respondent was represented by Advocates
Sayan Roy Chowdhury, Rudraman Bhattacharyya, Shuvasish Sengupta, etc.For
more visit: https://www.kashishipr.com/
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