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The Bombay High Court on Monday (August 26, 2024) put an interim stay on the Pune trial court order allowing the Pune-based burger joint to use the brand name ‘Burger King’ as its trademark.
US food giant Burger King Corporation on Monday (August 26, 2024) moved the Bombay High Court challenging the order of a Pune trial court. The global fast-food company has approached the High Court to protect its iconic brand name.
The verdict was pronounced by Pune District Judge Sunil Gangadharrao Vedpathak on 22 July 2024 and uploaded on 23 July 2024. The District Judge has dismissed the suit filed on 18 February 2011.
In its appeal against the trial court order, US-based Burger King argued in the Bombay high court that the injunction is in place since January 28, 2012 and the Pune-based restaurant is using only ‘Burger’ as its brand name and not ‘Burger King’. “Injunction is in place in this suit since January 28, 2012. They have now started using ‘King’ as well and this is against the injunction of the same court which is in place for the last 12 years,” advocate Hiren Kamod argued before a division bench of justices Atul Chandurkar and Rajesh Patil.
The bench then sought a copy of the injunction and the trial court order passed last month allowing the Pune-based eatery to use the word ‘Burger King’, but the appellants sought some time to produce a copy of the impugned order.
“We don’t have an interim order but we will show you (the bench) the final judgment. For some reason, some factual errors have been committed by the trial court”, Mr Kamod submitted.
The matter has been rescheduled for hearing on Monday at 2.30pm to allow the appellant to serve the original injunction order.
The case so far
Burger King is a company incorporated under the laws of the State of Florida with its principal place of business at 5505 Blue Lagoon Drive, Miami, Florida 33126, United States.
The plaintiff firm was founded in 1954 by James McLamore and David Edgerton. It began its business with one restaurant called Burger King and now manages and operates a worldwide chain of 13,000 fast food restaurants in over 100 countries and U.S. territories.
The trademark and trade name ‘Burger King’ has been used by the plaintiff since 1954 and is registered in more than 122 countries across the world including 22 countries in the Asia Pacific and South-East Asia regions and is a well-known trademark which is continuously and widely used for fast food restaurant services on a wide scale globally.
Upon discovering that a restaurant with the same name had been serving food since 2008, the company filed a suit claiming that the use of their name by the Pune-based burger restaurant was causing irreparable damage to their brand reputation.
The corporation sought a permanent injunction from the court to restrain the Pune-based restaurant from using the name ‘Burger King’.
He claimed trademark infringement and sought damages and a permanent injunction.
However, the district court passed an order in favour of the Pune-based company and said that Pune-based ‘Burger King’ had been using the name and brand since 1992, much before the US company registered its trademark in India and entered the Indian market.
“So far as the relief of perpetual injunction is concerned, admittedly the plaintiff has started providing services through restaurants under its trademark BURGER KING in India exclusively in the year 2014, whereas the defendants have been using the trademark BURGER KING for providing restaurant services since 1991-92. Even the plaintiff has not placed on record the registration certificate regarding registration of its trademark in India under class 42 prior to 1991-92. Admittedly the plaintiff has registered its trademark BURGER KING under class 42 relating to restaurant services on 06.10.2006. Therefore, considering the fact that the defendants are prior users of the concerned trademark, I am of the view that the plaintiff has no cause to seek relief of perpetual injunction,” Justice Vedpathak said.
Regarding the claims and compensation or damages, the judge said, “So far as the claim for compensation/indemnity of Rs. 20,00,000/- is concerned, except for the interested words that due to the ex parte order sought against them by the plaintiff, they have suffered loss to their goodwill. They had to answer the queries of some of the customers including the plaintiff. Thus, according to them, due to all these things, the defendants have caused loss to the tune of Rs. 20,00,000/-. However, there is no supporting evidence to prove the actual loss suffered by the defendants. Therefore, like the plaintiff, the defendants are also not entitled to claim damages.”
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