In a trademark battle spanning over twenty years, the Delhi Excessive Courtroom on Monday upheld a single decide bench order barring Hong Kong’s Crocodile Worldwide from utilising a crocodile emblem discovered to violate the trademark and copyright of Lacostethe French luxurious model, Bar and Bench reported.
A division bench comprising Justices Hari Shankar and Om Prakash Shukla dominated that Lacoste successfully proved infringement relating to its protected crocodile emblem and the precise inventive copyright of its signature emblem design.
Nonetheless, the courtroom stated Lacoste didn’t meet the necessities for a passing-off declare, noting that the model failed to supply satisfactory proof of the goodwill wanted to help that authorized argument.
The justices dismissed Crocodile’s defence that Lacoste had tacitly accepted or acquiesced to the usage of the disputed mark over time. This authorized confrontation between Lacoste and Crocodile dates again greater than twenty years, representing one chapter in an intensive worldwide trademark rivalry between the 2 clothes producers over the usage of reptile imagery within the trend trade.
Lacoste initiated authorized proceedings in 2001
Lacoste initiated authorized proceedings within the Delhi Excessive Courtroom in 2001 to safeguard its trademark and copyright pursuits inside India. The lawsuit aimed to ban Crocodile Worldwide and its Indian subsidiary from producing, advertising and marketing, or selling clothes and merchandise that includes a crocodile emblem that it claimed was confusingly just like its personal.
As per Lacoste’s arguments, whereas its signature crocodile faces to the best, the model utilized by Crocodile Worldwide faces to the left, making a reflection of the Lacoste image. The model contended that the sturdy visible and conceptual resemblance between the 2 marks would possible mislead the general public and weaken the distinctive id of its well-known trademark.
In response, Crocodile contested the authorized motion, arguing that the 2 events had beforehand reached a coexistence settlement in varied Asian markets, allowing each entities to function inside designated areas. It asserted that this association included India, thereby arguing that Lacoste was legally restricted from pursuing a everlasting injunction.
In August 2024, a single decide of the Delhi Excessive Courtroom dominated in favour of Lacoste, issuing a everlasting injunction barring Crocodile Worldwide from utilizing the contested crocodile emblem in India.
Moreover, the courtroom ordered Crocodile to supply an account of its earnings from the sale of any merchandise bearing the infringing mark ranging from August 1998 — the interval when the agency first entered the Indian market — till the mark’s use was discontinued.
Each events subsequently appealed completely different parts of that preliminary verdict, ensuing within the present judgment.