[Breaking] Delhi Court Grants Relief To Campus Activewear In Trademark Infringement Case

Delhi's Tis Hazari Court has granted prima facie relief to Campus Activewear in a trademark infringement case.

The Plaintiff (Campus Active Wear) had moved an application before the Court for restraining the use of trademark  Campass, Clampass and Clamps.

Contentions made by Campus Active Wear

According to the petitioners, the defendant's trademark is deceptively and phonetically similar to the registered trademarks of the Plaintiff i.e. “Campus” and “Camp”.

The petitioner company highlighted that the shoe brand had a prior start to the business in 1984. Plaintiff was the owner of 20 registered trademarks in the form of Campus marks and had been using the same for footwear since 1990/ 2002.

Campus Activewear's arguments revolved around the brand value and the goodwill the company enjoys in the market owing to a strong presence and endorsement in the market.

The Defendant (Rahul Singh & Others) counter argued that trademark Clampass was a device mark which   was   neither phonetically nor visually similar.  

The said trademark was also used with the logo ‘CS’ while the plaintiff was using a design logo of   Cursive   ‘W’.  The defendants stated that there was no scope of any confusion to any customer on the basis of their trademark. They further stated that they have already withdrawn their trademark relating to the trademark   Campass,   Clamps and   CsCampass. 

Court's view on the use of Clampass

The Court found merit in the plaintiff's claim of being a prior user of the 20 registered trademarks as evidenced by the documents placed on record. The plaintiff company was able to link its sales, advertising and celebrity endorsement costs with the use of its registered trademarks since 1990.

On the other hand, the court said that although the defendant claimed that he was using the device mark Clampass on the basis of a registration certificate dated 18.02.2021, it did not file any other document to show that they have been using the same from any prior date then is mentioned on the registration certificate. 

Accordingly, the court held that the plaintiff is the prior user of the trademark Campus and the defendant seems to be a recent entrant.

"As both parties are dealing with similar products and the choice of alphabets by Defendant makes his trademark more or less phonetically similar to Plaintiff’s trademark Campus, customers for both parties would be the same", the court added while granting prima facie relief to Campus Activewear.

Plaintiff was represented by Zeeshan Hashmi, Advocate with Ankit Parashar, Advocate and Kashif Zafar, ALBA Law Offices.

The defendant was represented by  Advocate. Anil Pandey.