The Bombay High Court granted interim relief in favour of Empire Spices and Foods Limited, restraining the Defendant from using the mark ‘SHREE RAM BANDHU’ or any other mark deceptively similar to the Plaintiff’s registered trademark ‘RAM BANDHU’.
Justice Sharmila U. Deshmukh, while allowing the interim application, held that Section 17 of the Trademarks Act would not come in the way of granting reliefs merely because the Plaintiff holds registration for a ‘device mark’.
The plaintiff filed the suit for infringement of trademark, copyright, and passing off. However, in view of the pending application for leave under Clause XIV of the Letters Patent (Bombay), the Court limited its consideration to trademark and copyright infringement.
The Defendant in the said case took a defence that since the Plaintiff’s registered Trademark ‘RAM BANDHU’ was a device mark, no rights could be claimed over the words ‘RAM BANDHU’ which is ‘part’ of the device mark, having regard to section 17 of the Trademarks Act.
The Court rejected the said contention by stating that there is no distinctive or prominent feature in the Plaintiff’s Trade mark other than the words ‘RAM BANDHU’. Hence, there is no ‘part’ of the ‘whole’ which is distinguishable to apply the provisions of Section 17 of the Trade Marks Act, 1999.
“There is another aspect of the matter to be considered. What happens when there is no other distinctive thing or prominent feature apart from the words. The mark “RAM BANDHU” is nothing else but the words. There is no “part” of the “whole” which is distinguishable to apply the provisions of Section 17 of Trade Marks Act, 1999. The entirety of the mark is subsumed in the Defendant’s mark. As the words “RAM BANDHU” itself forms the registered mark, the same are required to be protected and it is no defence to say that the words have not been registered separately”. the Court said.
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On the above aspect, the Court followed the Bombay High Court judgments of Jagdish Gopal Kamath vs. Lime & Chilli Hospitality Services and Pidlite Industries Ltd. v. Jubilant Agri and Consumer Products Ltd which stated that composite or device marks would become useless if an infringer could use the exact words of a registered device mark but in a different font and style and claim that there is no infringement. The purpose of Section 17(1) will be totally frustrated.
On the defence raised by the Defendant of ‘RAM’ being the name of Hindu deity, the Court observed that it was not the word ‘RAM’ but the mark ‘RAM BANDHU’ in it’s entirety that was copied by the Defendant and hence the said defence is unsustainable in the facts and circumstances of the case.
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The Court granted Empire Spices interim reliefs, restraining the defendant from using the mark ‘SHREE RAM BANDHU’ or any mark deceptively similar to the Plaintiff’s registered trademark ‘RAM BANDHU’ and also from infringing the subsisting copyright in the artistic work of ‘RAM BANDHU’.
However, on a specific request being made, the Court was inclined to stay the order for a period of four weeks.
Case Title: Empire Spices and Foods Limited v. Sanjay Bhimraoji Deshmukh. [Interim Application No. 2119 of 2025 in Commercial IP Suit No. 366 of 2025]
