The Division Bench of the Delhi High Court in the case of Corza International & Ors. vs Future Bath Products Pvt Ltd & Anr. consisting of Justices Manmohan and Saurabh Banerjee reiterated that the registered proprietor of a trademark can sue another registered proprietor of a trademark alleging deceptive similarity and the Courts are competent to grant an ad-interim injunction. It was further opined that the Appellate Court will not interfere with the exercise of discretion of the court of first instance and substitute its discretion except where the discretion
Brief Facts:
This appeal was filed challenging the order passed by the learned Single Judge vide which interim injunction was issued in favour of the Respondents.
Contentions of the Appellant:
It was submitted that the Appellants are primarily engaged in the field of manufacturing and selling water closets and ancillary products since 1999. Moreover, the Appellants’ products are completely different from the Respondents’ products. Furthermore, the two marks in question, (‘CORZA’ and ‘CORSA’) are different and their area of physical operation is also different. So, there was no question of loss of market share or customers being confused.
It was also contended that the Appellants are registered owners of the mark CORZA in Class 19, hence their operations could not have been confined to the State of Kerala regarding Class 19 category goods.
Observations of the Court:
The Bench observed that the two marks in question were phonetically, structurally, and visually similar. It also noted that Respondent No.1 (Plaintiff No.1) was the prior user of the mark in question as it had produced documents showing the use of the mark CORSA since 2009, whereas the Appellants placed on record documents showing the use of their mark CORZA only since 2014.
It was opined that a registered proprietor of a trademark can sue another registered proprietor of a trademark alleging deceptive similarity and the Courts are competent to grant an ad-interim injunction. Moreover, the prime reason for the institution of the suit was that on their Facebook page, the Appellants had themselves stated that they would be shortly expanding their business to sanitary wares, which would have included Respondents’ products.
It was also reiterated that the Appellate Court will not interfere with the exercise of discretion of the court of first instance and substitute its discretion except where the discretion has been shown to have been exercised arbitrarily, or capriciously or perversely.
The decision of the Court:
The Bench did not find any ground to interfere with the impugned order and the appeal was dismissed accordingly.
Case Title: Corza International & Ors vs Future Bath Products Pvt Ltd & Anr
Case No: FAO(OS) (COMM) 2/2023
Coram: Hon’ble Justice Manmohan, Hon’ble Justice Saurabh Banerjee
Advocate for Appellant: Adv. Mr. Jayant Kumar.
Advocate for Respondents: Adv. Mr. Umesh Mishra with Mr. Satish Kumar
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