Mother Sparsh Baby Care PVT LTD vs. Aayush Gupta & Ors.

Facts

The Plaintiff, Mother Sparsh Baby Care Pvt Ltd, filed a suit seeking injunction against infringement of its trademark 'PLANT POWERED'. The Plaintiff adopted the mark in 2019 and has been using it for natural and eco-friendly baby and personal care products, with sales of Rs. 5.95 crores and promotional expenses over Rs. 4 crores. The Defendant, Mr. Aayush Gupta, applied for registration of the mark 'PLANT POWERED' with a flower logo on December 29, 2020, on a proposed to be used basis. The Plaintiff discovered the Defendant's products on Amazon and alleged that the Defendant's conduct was mala fide, citing a cease and desist notice response and the Defendant's complaint to Amazon which led to the Plaintiff's products being delisted. The Plaintiff also alleged manipulation of e-way bills by the Defendant to support their claim of prior user.

Held

The Court held that the Plaintiff is the prior adopter and user of the mark 'PLANT POWERED' since 2019, while the Defendant's earliest document is a trademark application from December 2020. The Court found that the Defendant was using 'PLANT POWERED' as a trademark, not merely as a description, as evidenced by their trademark application. This position was supported by the judgment in Automatic Electric Limited v. R. K. Dhawan & Ors. The Court also noted that the Defendant's conduct was not bona fide, as the user documents for 2020 lacked confidence. The Court confirmed the ex parte injunction granted on February 24, 2022, restraining the Defendant from using the mark 'PLANT POWERED' conjunctively for baby care or personal care products and from using it as a trading style. The domain name 'plantpowered.in' was also injuncted. The Plaintiff was permitted to move an application seeking reliefs regarding the discrepancy in e-way bills and tax invoices. The Court did not expressly leave any issue undecided.

Key Issues

1. Whether the Plaintiff is the prior adopter and user of the trademark 'PLANT POWERED' in respect of baby care and personal care products, thereby entitling them to protection against infringement and passing off under trademark law? 2. Whether the Defendant's use of the mark 'PLANT POWERED' is deceptive and causes confusion among consumers, constituting infringement and passing off, particularly given the alleged discrepancy in the Defendant's user documents? Petitioner's Arguments: The Plaintiff argued that they are the prior adopter and user of the mark since 2019, while the Defendant's trademark application was filed in December 2020. They contended that the Defendant's conduct was mala fide, evidenced by their failure to respond to a cease and desist notice and instead complaining to Amazon, leading to the Plaintiff's products being delisted. The Plaintiff also alleged that the Defendant's invoices for 2020 were manipulated, as e-way bills did not reflect the 'PLANT POWERED' mark. They relied on the principle that prior user rights are protected even for descriptive marks. Revenue/State's Arguments: The Defendant argued that 'PLANT POWERED' is a descriptive mark and no monopoly can be claimed over it. They contended that there is no similarity between the products, especially since the Plaintiff uses the house mark 'MOTHER SPARSH'. They relied on judgments where a house mark distinguishes products. The Defendant also suggested adding a hyphen or other distinguishing features to their mark and argued that the gap between adoption was not too long. They sought to explain the discrepancy in e-way bills by stating that the name cannot be manually incorporated.