The judgement came on a suit filed by Yahoo Inc, a global technology company, seeking permanent injunction to restrain Apricot Foods Pvt Ltd (AFPL), its Director Sanjay Patel and Shri Jee Traders from allegedly infringing its trademark.
Justice S Muralidhar also passed a decree in favour of Yahoo Inc and asked AFPL and its director to pay it Rs 32 lakh damages and Rs 6.44 lakh as cost.
Shri Jee Traders told the court that they were not dealing in products with Yahoo trademark and also gave an undertaking in this regard, following which Yahoo Inc said it was not pressing for damages against them.
Yahoo Inc claimed that AFPL was infringing its trademark and marketing their merchandise under the name 'Yahoo Masala Chakra' and 'Yahoo Tomato Tangy'.
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"The plaintiff (Yahoo Inc) has been able to prove that defendants 1 and 2 (AFPL and its director) have adopted the plaintiff's trademark as the name of their product in order to piggyback on the reputation of the plaintiff and (its) trademark and that such adoption of the trademark Yahoo for AFPL's snack items is undoubtedly dishonest," the court said, adding AFPL has taken had taken an "unfair advantage" of the Yahoo Inc trademark.
"In the result, the court issues a decree of permanent injunction restraining defendant Nos. 1 and 2, their principal officers, servants and agents, group/sister concerns/companies from manufacturing, selling, offering for sale, distributing products or offering services, advertising including on the Internet, and in any other manner using the Yahoo trademark or any other deceptively similar mark as part of their product name etc amounting to infringement of plaintiff's registered trademarks," the court said.