Bombay HC dismisses Reliance Industries’ plea in logo infringement case against Concord Enviro Systems [Read Judgment]

The Bombay High Court, has dismissed a plea of Reliance Industries seeking injunction against Concord Enviro Systems Pvt. Ltd from using a ‘deceptively similar’ logo.

Justice S.J. Kathawalla dismissed the plea with costs, observing that the rival logos are absolutely dissimilar and there is no question of any confusion.

The Concord Enviro Systems submitted before the Court that Reliance Industries, an extremely powerful corporate with unlimited resources is seeking to brow beat and harass, honest and bona fide entities doing legitimate business, and is trying to seek an all pervasive monopoly on a curve, which is impermissible in law.

The Court said: “not only is there no similarity found upon the rival logos being compared, but the rival logos are found to be absolutely different and/or distinct and/or dissimilar. There is no question whatsoever of any confusion and/or deception being caused on account of the use of the rival logos. This is apparent to the naked eye itself.”

The Court said observed: “There is a clear difference and/or distinction between the Plaintiff's curve which is in round circular shape and the curve used by the Defendant. In fact, what is referred to as the 'curve' used by the Defendant is, as explained by the Defendant, the initials of the Defendant i.e. 'c' and 'e', which are artistically depicted inside the water droplet, which is an essential feature of the Defendant's logo. As against this, the Plaintiff itself calls its logo ('curve') as the 'R' logo, since the letter 'R' is written in an artistic manner inside the circle. In the Plaintiff's 'R' logo, 'R' is formed in inverse space that is white colour or no colour. It therefore cannot be held that any person on seeing the impugned logo of the Defendant, would in view of the general recollection of the Plaintiff's mark or otherwise, be deceived to think that the trade mark before him is the same as the Plaintiff's mark.”

The Court further observed : “Since the rival logos are completely different and/or distinct, the question of there being any likelihood of confusion and/or damage to the Plaintiff, and the goods of the Defendant being passed-off as that of the Plaintiff does not arise, and the Plaintiff's case in respect of passing-off fails. Again in view of there being no similarity between the rival logos, which in fact are completely dissimilar, by no stretch of imagination can it be said that a person after seeing the rival marks would be of an opinion or would get an impression that the Defendant's logo appears to be a copy of the original. Therefore the allegation made by the Plaintiff that the Defendant is guilty of infringement of copyright is also not established.”

Read the Judgment here.