The Delhi High Court in the case Nilkamal Crates and Contaners and Anr. v. Ms. Reena Rajpal and Anr observed and has restrained two plastic chair manufacturers from using ‘Nilkranti’ device mark or any other device mark which is confusingly or deceptively similar to the device marks of Nilkamal.
The bench headed by Justice C Hari Shankar in the case observed and has rejected the Nilkamal’s prayer in its trademark infringement suit in order to restrain the manufacturers from using “Nilkranti” as a word mark, either for chairs or for any other item manufactured by them. The court stated that there being no such similarity between NILKAMAL and NILKRANTI. Therefore, the latter half of the two marks ‘KAMAL’ and ‘KRANTI’, individually have their own distinct etymological connotations in vernacular, with the one meaning a lotus and the other a revolution.
The bench of Justice C Hari Shankar stated that the mark NILKRANTI, seen as a word mark, cannot be regarded as confusingly similar to NILKAMAL mark, while adding that the common prefix “NIL” is merely the first of three syllables which constituted the word.
The court in the case observed that it being the well-settled that the rival marks are to be considered as whole marks, and not by vivisecting them into their individual components. Thus, the principal also finds its statutory avatar in Section 177 of the Trade Marks Act, which specifically holds that plaintiffs are entitled to claim exclusivity over a registered mark as a whole and not over individual parts of the mark, unless such parts are registered by themselves as marks and the plaintiff in the matter do not have any registration for the ‘NIL’ prefix of the NILKAMAL mark.
In the present case, the Nilkamal Crates and Containers filed the suit against two manufacturers who were using ‘Nilkranti’ mark for making plastic moulded chairs, as also done by the former. The court in the case observed that while Nilkamal made out a prima facie for injuncting the defendant manufacturers, pending the disposal of the suit, from using the device mark Nilkranti.
However, no such case for injuncting the defendants from using the word mark NILKRANTI was made out.
Therefore, the plaintiff claims a monopoly over the prefix “NIL” so as to injunct all others from using “NIL” as a prefix for the marks in respect of plastic moulded chairs or any other item or furniture for that matter. Thus, the marks have to be compared as a whole mark and there being no such phonetic similarity between NILKAMAL and NILKRANTI.
Further, the bench of Justice Shankar stated that there being no such reason as to why the court should presume that a consumer of average intelligence and imperfect recollection will either confuse NILKAMAL with NILKRANTI or believe that there some association between the two marks.
The counsel, Advocates Ms. Anju Agrawal, Dr. Mohan Dewan, Mr. Rahul Maratha, Mr. D. Pawar, Mr. B. Ghosh, Mr. Vardhman Jain and Mr. M.K. Bhargava appeared for the Plaintiff.
The counsel, Advocates Mr. Satish Kumar, Mr. Sreejan Pankaj and Mr. Anil Kumar Sahu represented the defendants.