Delhi High Court Restrains Former ‘Bachpan’ Playschool Franchisee From Continuing Use Of Its Trademarks, Logo

“The use, by the defendants, of the plaintiff’s mark, for running play schools, holding itself out to be a franchisee of the plaintiff, clearly results in likelihood of confusion and association, as envisaged by Section 29(2)(c) read with Section 29(3) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999”, the court said.

The plaintiff, being provider of playschool services under the name and style of ‘Bachpan’, had filed the suit alleging infringement of its registered trademarks and passing off.

It had averred that though a Franchisee Agreement was entered with defendant No.1, the same ended in 2021 due to efflux of time and was not renewed as defendant No.1 defaulted in payment of license fee.

While submitting that by dint of continuous use, ‘Bachpan’ marks had become source identifiers, the plaintiff averred that the defendants had lost right to use them and could not be allowed to pass themselves off as franchisees of the plaintiff.

Despite having been served, neither anyone appeared for the defendants nor any written statement/reply was filed.

Observing that plaintiff had been able to make out a prima facie case of infringement and passing off, the court passed an order restraining the defendants till disposal of the suit from using ‘Bachpan’ mark, either as a word mark, or as a logo identical or deceptively similar to plaintiff’s registered device marks, in context of playschools or any other allied services.

The court further directed removal of any reference to plaintiff’s ‘Bachpan’ mark from all physical and virtual sites on which said mark may be reflected in association with the defendants.

Senior Advocate Rajshekhar Rao with Advocates Aarzoo Aneja, Udian Sharma, Vanshita Gupta, Meherunissa Jaitley and Dushyant Kaul appeared for plaintiff

Case Title: Ms SK Educations Pvt Ltd v. Sripathi Bhushan Srichandan & Anr., CS(COMM) 715/2023

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Del) 1176