Bloomberg secures injunction in India
Financial news company Bloomberg has been granted a preliminary injunction against a host of “paper” companies that infringed its trademark.
The High Court of Delhi issued the order, on October 11, against more than 20 linked companies working in sectors including building and construction, and entertainment.
Bloomberg, which employs more than 15,000 employees in nearly 200 offices, accused the defendants of “slavishly” adopting its trademark.
The defendants’ began using the Bloomberg name in 2011, some 15 years after the US company began using its trademark in India.
Bloomberg filed suit last year, immediately after the defendants, known as “Prafull Saklecha and others”, used one of the ‘Bloomberg’ companies in association with a Hindi film.
Assessing the request for a preliminary injunction, Justice Muralidhar said Bloomberg’s 24-hour English TV channel in India, launched in 2008, is an important factor for determining the company’s presence and reputation in India.
“Television channels do offer a high degree of visibility and recognition. There is material to show prima facie that the plaintiff’s mark is well-known and that it has both a trans-border reputation as well as a reputation in India. This aspect will no doubt have to be examined at depth after the trial is concluded.”
The defendant’s use of the Bloomberg name is “not convincing at all”, the judge said, as the name is not common in India.
He added: “The defendants’ adoption of BLOOMBERG as part of the corporate name in the construction and building industry is also reflective of a trend where adoption of fancy western names for products and services offered in that industry is believed to offer a greater attractiveness to investors.”
After granting the preliminary injunction, he said the defendants have six weeks to change their names.
Sushant Singh, who is acting for Bloomberg, said the ruling had important implications for the rules on trademark dilution.
“The most important part of the judgement is the discussion on the judgement in Raymond v Raymond Pharmaceuticals, which had held that corporate name infringement cannot take place where the defendants’ fields of activity are altogether different. The Bloomberg
judgement holds that the Division Bench of High Court of Bombay (in the Raymond case) did not consider the provisions of Section 29 (of the Trade Marks Act) and interpret them in the correct perspective.
“The resultant effect of this discussion is that there is much more clarity in the law relating to dilution. It clarifies the doubts that were unnecessarily raised in the Raymond judgement by observing that it has no impact because it did not consider section 29 in the right perspective.”
He added: “This is a very significant development and perhaps one of the first decisions which extensively interprets the newer provisions of the dilution of trademarks since the enactment of the Trade Marks Act 1999.”
The case is expected to go to trial next year.
