Use Of “See-It, See-It” & “Seth” Is Not A Mere Coincidence: Bombay HC Restrains Apollo Tyres From Circulating Advertisement Which Denigrates CEAT Tyres
The Bombay High Court restrained Apollo Tyres Limited from circulating an advertisement that it published on YouTube advertising its APOLLO APTERRA AT2 tyres observing that it denigrates and disparages the CEAT products.
The Court was hearing the IPR Suit and Interim Application filed by the Plaintiff seeking an injunction against the Defendant for the acts of disparagement and slander of the Plaintiff’s CROSSDRIVE AT car tyre by the Defendant through the circulation, broadcast, communication to the public of a video commercial (VC) advertisement, as well as infringement of the Plaintiff’s registered trade mark CEAT.
The bench of Justice R.I. Chagla observed, “Plaintiff has made out a strong prima facie case for the grant of ad-interim reliefs.…pending the hearing and final disposal of this suit, the Defendant by themselves, their directors, servants, officers, agents, distributors, dealers, representatives, assignees and all those connected with the Defendant in their business be restrained by an order and temporary injunction of this Hon’ble Court from in any manner circulating/sharing broadcasting or otherwise howsoever communicating to anyone, the public including trade channels or publishing the impugned advertisement…”
Senior Advocate Virag Tulzapurkar appeared for the Appellant.
Brief Facts-
It is the case of the Plaintiff that it is a leading tyre manufacturer in India and holds the rights to the CEAT trademark. CEAT has a significant presence in the Global as well as Indian markets. It claimed that its rights were infringed by an advertisement on public platforms by Defendant, Apollo, which unfairly depicted Plaintiff's CROSSDRIVE AT tyre as worn out while promoting Apollo's APTERRA AT2 tyre as superior. The Plaintiff asserted that the advertisement tarnishes CEAT's reputation and misleads consumers about the quality of its tyres.
The Court mentioned its decision in Hindustan Unilever Limited vs. Abbott Laboratories & Ors., Interim Application (L) No. 27529 of 2024 in Commercial IPR Suit (L) No. 27527 of 2024 and quoted, “It is a settled law that a tradesman is entitled to declare his goods to be the best in the world or to say that his product is better than his competitor's, however, while doing so he cannot directly or indirectly say that the goods of his competitors are bad or inferior and if he does so then he slanders the goods of his competitors and defames his competitors and their goods which is not permissible.”
The Court was of the view that the Impugned Advertisement unfairly seeks to compare the Plaintiff’s worn-out tyre with the Defendant’s brand new tyre and the basic premise of the impugned advertisement is to denigrate and slander the Plaintiff’s said CROSSDRIVE AT tyre.
The Court observed, “The use of: (i) spoken words “SEE-IT, SEE-IT” and “SETH”, (ii) the conversation between rival tyres where one is shown to grumble and other taunt and flaunt, (iii) visual representation denoting the worn out condition of the Plaintiff’s tyre as against the Defendant’s tyre in a new condition, (iv) the mocking and ridiculing of the Plaintiff’s worn out tyre through the use of spoken words and visual representation of inter alia the stationary position of the car owing to fragile condition of the Plaintiff’s tyre as well as the maroon car with the Defendant’s tyre zooming past the black car with the Plaintiff’s tyre, and (v) the comments posted by the members of the general public who have identified the Plaintiff’s tyre in the impugned VC advertisement is sufficient evidence of disparagement and slander of Plaintiff’s goods knowingly undertaken by the Defendant.”
The Court noted that the depiction of the Plaintiff’s tyre in the impugned VC advertisement and the use of the words “SEE-IT, SEE-IT” and “SETH” (phonetically similar to CEAT) is not a mere coincidence and the context and the manner in which it has been used makes it evident that the Defendant intends to create a bias in the mind of the viewers.
The Court listed the matter on October 11, 2024.
Cause Title: Ceat Limited v. Apollo Tyres Ltd.
Appearance:
Appellant:
Senior Advocate Virag Tulzapurkar and Advocates Hiren Kamod, Vinod Bhagat and Prachi Shah