Delhi High Court Dismisses Aqualite's Appeal; Upholds Interim Injunction Granted To Relaxo In Design Piracy Suit

Delivering judgment on 18 November 2025, a Division Bench of Justice C. Hari Shankar and Justice Om Prakash Shukla ruled that no ground had been made out to interfere with the Single Judge's findings and that Relaxo had established a prima facie case of design piracy.

The dispute began when Relaxo instituted a suit alleging that Aqualite's slippers infringed its registered designs relating to two of its products. The Single Judge, by order dated 8 October 2021, granted an interim injunction preventing Aqualite from continuing the manufacture or sale of the allegedly infringing products.

Aqualite challenged this order before the Division Bench, arguing that the designs lacked novelty, were anticipated by prior publication and that the Single Judge had erred in examining design validity by not considering all the prior art placed on record.

The Court examined the prior art relied on by Aqualite and ruled that, on application of “instructed eye” test, Relaxo's registered designs disclosed a new and distinctive visual appearance, particularly with respect to the arrangement, configuration and surface pattern of the side ridges.

The Court explained the meaning of “instructed eye” test in design infringement cases by distinguishing it from “average intelligence test and imperfect recollection” test applied in trademark matters. Referring to B. Chawla & Sons v Bright Auto Industries, the Court observed that – “This distinction is of fundamental significance, especially when considering the novelty of the suit design vis-à-vis prior art. A person of average intelligence and imperfect recollection may not recollect all the specific features of the prior art. At the same time, the instructed eye, which is aware of the novel features of prior art would be much better equipped to assess as to whether the suit design is novel vis-à-vis prior art.”

The Court held that the prior art cited by Aqualite did not anticipate Relaxo's designs under Section 19 of the Designs Act and that the designs could not be said to lack novelty.

The Bench also affirmed that Aqualite's own subsequent application for registration of an identical design undermined its challenge to novelty of Relaxo's design.

Observing that the Court must be cautious in disturbing findings rendered at the interim stage in a design infringement action, the Bench referred to Wander Ltd v Antox India (P) Ltd and Pernod Ricard India (P) Ltd v Karanveer Singh Chhabra and held that Single Judge had rightly observed that Relaxo had established a prima facie case of design piracy.

Since Aqualite's footwear was found to be identical in shape and configuration to Relaxo's footwear and Relaxo's design registrations were held not to be prima facie liable to cancellation under Section 19 of the Designs Act, the Division Bench concluded that the Single Judge had rightly passed the injunction order against Aqualite.

Consequently, the Division Bench dismissed Aqualite's appeal.

Case Title: Aqualite Industries Private Ltd v. Relaxo Footwears Limited

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 1529

Case No.: FAO(OS)(IPD) 1/2022

Appearance:

For the Appellant: Ms. Swathi Sukumar, Sr. Adv., Mr. C. A. Brijesh, Ms. Simranjot Kaur, Mr. Ritwik Sharma, Advs.

For the Respondent: Mr. Saif Khan and Mr. Shobhit Agarwal, Advs.