Tis Hazari Court, Delhi: In a case wherein an application was filed by the plaintiff, the Polo/Lauren Company L.P seeking interim injunction restraining the defendant, Home Needs to export, manufacture, marketing, using, selling/soliciting, advertising etc., the trade mark/label 
, Sanjeev Kumar Aggarwal, District Judge (Commercial Court)-01 held that the plaintiff had prima facie failed to establish that the defendant was infringing the trade mark of the plaintiff or passing off its goods as the goods of the plaintiff, therefore, the plaintiff was not entitled to relief of injunction. Hence, the Court dismissed the application and held that the interim stay granted earlier stands vacated.
Background
The plaintiff was engaged in manufacture, distribution, trade, and sale of a wide range of clothing, fashion and lifestyle products including spans fashion wear, sportswear, eye wear, luggage, bags and luxurious home décor and other allied and related goods and offering services in connection therewith. The plaintiff adopted the mark ‘POLO’ in 1967 and subsequently had been using its formative trade mark in conjunction with other words/marks in various styles and artistic formats with and/or without device of Polo Player, which had been created and were being created over a period of time viz POLO, POLO RALPH LAUREN.
The plaintiff submitted that the defendant was engaged in the business of manufacturing, marketing, soliciting, selling, displaying and trading of range of household products and kitchen utensils, including but not limited to, stainless steel vacuum insulated bottles, single wall bottles, trays, cookware’s, dinnerware and other allied/related products and defendant had adopted and started using the trade mark, 
in relation to its impugned goods and defendant’s adoption of the said trade mark was in complete violation of the plaintiff’s statutory and common law right in the said trade mark and copyright. The plaintiff further submitted that mere addition of the word ‘LIFETIME’ to the term ‘POLO’ did not render it distinctive and distinguishable. It had been further stated that the impugned trade mark/label adopted by the defendant were identical and deceptively similar to the plaintiff’s trade mark/label in each and every respect including phonetically, visually, structurally, in its basic idea and its essential features.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court observed that in most of the plaintiff’s trade mark, besides Polo word, Ralph Lauren was also used along with POLO player on horse whereas in the defendant’s trade mark besides POLO, the word ‘Lifetime’ was also used hence except the word ‘POLO’ there was no similarity between plaintiff’s trade mark and defendant’s trade mark. The Court further opined that from the documents, it was prima facie evident that the plaintiff was in the business of manufacturing/selling fashion wear whereas the defendant was admittedly in the business of manufacturing/selling the kitchenware goods, therefore, they were dealing with in different goods and so there was very less scope of customers/purchasers of the goods of defendant being confused that they were purchasing the goods of the plaintiff. Thus, the Court opined that it did not agree with the contention of the plaintiff’s counsel that the plaintiff had such a goodwill and reputation in India that the customers would relate defendant’s goods being of plaintiff’s due to use of word POLO in defendant trade mark.
The Court noted that the plaintiff started selling its fashion goods in India in 2018, whereas defendant’s predecessor or even defendant started using trade mark ‘POLO’ much before 2018. The Court opined that the invoice filed by the defendant proved that it produced and sold goods with trade mark ‘POLO’ since 2005 and the defendant’s predecessor applied for registration of trade mark ‘POLO’ in 2009 though later he abandoned it, the defendant got the mark ‘POLO Lifetime’ registered in 2011, therefore, the Court that the plaintiff had prima facie failed to prove that it was prior user in India.
Thus, the Court held that the plaintiff had prima facie failed to establish that the defendant was infringing the trade mark of the plaintiff or passing off its goods as the goods of the plaintiff. Further, the plaintiff failed to show that balance of convenience lied in its favour and that irreparable injury or loss would be caused to the plaintiff but, rather it would be caused to the defendant as it would amount to shut down of his business despite the fact that the defendant was the registered owner of the trade mark ‘POLO Lifetime’ and till date, the said registration was not cancelled, therefore, the plaintiff was not entitled to relief of injunction.
Hence, the Court dismissed the application and held that the interim stay granted earlier stands vacated.
[The Polo/Lauren Company L.P. v. Home Needs, 2023 SCC OnLine Dis Crt (Del) 17, Order dated 14-7-2023]
