Calcutta HC Grants Relief to Republic TV in Trademark Infringement Suit
The Calcutta High Court (HC) has recently granted relief to Arnab Goswami’s AGR Outlier Media Asianet News Pvt. Ltd. (plaintiff) in passing off lawsuit citing infringement of Republic TV’s trademark. The Trademark Infringement suit had been filed against Shailputri Media Pvt. Ltd. (defendant) running an internet portal under the domain name ‘www.republichindi.com,’ obtained on May 6, 2017, the same day on which Goswami’s Republic TV was launched. The plaintiff told the HC that even before May 2017 launch, Republic TV was advertised on a nation-wide basis for many preceding months. Moreover, the trademark for ‘Republic’ was received on November 20, 2016. According to these facts, it was contended that the defendant had copied the trademark of the plaintiff. The plaintiff claimed that the defendant had used a domain name similar to Republic TV’s, and also ignored the legal notice sent to the defendant in this regard. On the other hand, the defendant argued that the name of ‘Republic Hindi’ was conceptualized and implemented by itself. It was also argued that the plaintiff was looking for monopolizing the use of the term ‘Republic,’ even though it was a generic term with nothing distinctive in it. To strengthen this argument, the