New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has restrained a couple of coaching centres here from using the trademark BrahMos, name of a joint venture company of the central government, for their educational activities.
Justice Manmohan Singh passed the interim injunction order on the plea of BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd, a joint venture between India`s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia`s Federal State Unitary Enterprise NPO Mashinostroyenia (NPOM).
BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd (BAPL) had challenged the use of the trademark BrahMos by the institutes FIIT JEE Limited and USA University Quest, which coaches engineering aspirants for various entrance exams in India.
"Considering the overall facts and circumstances of the case, defendants (FIIT JEE and USA University Quest), their servants, agents and all other persons acting on their behalf are restrained from using the trademark BrahMos in relation to educational activities or part of domain name and in any manner whatsoever in order to create the confusion and deception and infringing the trademark of plaintiff (BAPL)," the bench said.
The high court also observed, "The plaintiff has been able to make out a strong prima facie case for the grant of interim injunction. Since the plaintiff is the registered proprietor of the trademark, the case of infringement is also made out...."
The court was of the opinion that if the interim order was not passed it would cause "irreparable loss and injury" to BAPL which has "exclusive right....To take benefit of goodwill, name and reputation".
Justice Singh also held that "the trademark BrahMos is a well-known trademark. The moment Brahmos comes within the range of well-known trademark, it is even protected in relation to dissimilar services".
In its plea, BAPL, which manufactures the supersonic BrahMos cruise missile, had contended that the coaching centres were using the trademark in connection with their online aptitude tests, an activity which was identical to the educational and training programmes conducted by the company for its employees and engineers.
It had submitted the coaching institutes have "dishonestly adopted" the BrahMos trademark to give an impression to students that their online test is affiliated to BAPL.
BAPL had also said that the word BrahMos is unique as it has been coined by combining the names of two rivers - Brahmputra in India and Moskva in Russia.
The institutes had opposed BAPL`s plea, saying their activities are different from that of the DRDO company and that they are not using BrahMos as a trademark.
The high court, however, rejected their arguments as "totally frivolous" and added that they are using the trademark "deliberately in order to take advantage of the trademark BrahMos".
