Delhi High Court: In a petition filed by Crocs under Sections 47 and 57 of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 (‘the Act’) seeking cancellation of the registration of the trade mark ‘CROOSE’ (‘impugned mark’) in Class 25, the Single Judge Bench of Tejas Kataria, J, held that the impugned mark was deceptively similar to the plaintiff’s trade mark ‘CROCS’.
Thus, the Court directed the Registrar to cancel the registration of the impugned mark and delete it from the Register of Trade Marks.
Background
The petitioner company, Crocs Inc. is engaged in the business of manufacturing and selling a wide variety of footwear and allied goods and is the registered proprietor of the trade mark ‘CROCS’. The trade mark ‘CROCS’ was originally adopted in 2002 in the United States of America, but with the passage of time, it has been used and registered in multiple jurisdictions of the world including India. The petitioner’s products bearing the said trade mark are sold all across India through various retail stores and online on multiple e-commerce platforms, including the petitioner’s own website.
The present petition was filed seeking cancellation of registration of the mark ‘CROOSE’ claiming that it was deceptively similar to the petitioner’s trade name ‘CROCS’ and was being used for sale of goods similar to the petitioners.
Analysis, Law and Decision
The Court noted that the petitioner being the owner of the mark ‘CROCS’ was clearly a ‘person aggrieved’ and could maintain a cancellation petition under Section 57 of the Act.
The Court compared the products under the two marks and observed that the placement of the mark on the products as well as the overall visual appearance of the impugned mark was deceptively similar to the petitioner’s marks and since they were being used for identical goods under the same class, it was likely to cause confusion amongst consumers and members of the trade.
The Court thus directed cancellation and removal of the impugned mark from the Register of Trade Marks. The Registrar was directed to rectify and update the same on their website within a period of four weeks.
[Crocs Inc. v. Registrar, Trademarks, C.O. (COMM. I.P.D- T.M.) No. 82 of 2023, decided on 26-9-2025]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioner: Ajay Amitabh Suman, Shravan Kumar Bansal, Rishi Bansal, Deepak Srivastava, Shruti Manchanda, D. Mehra, Advocates
For the Respondent: Ashish K. Dixit, Shivam Tiwari, Umar Hashmi, Harshit Jain, Rahul Kumar, Advocates
