Delhi High Court Orders ₹5 Lakh Deposit For Repeated Trademark Infringement Of Ramada International, Warns of Incarceration
|The Delhi High Court directed the defendant hotels to deposit Rs. 5 lakhs for repeatedly violating the Court orders by continuing to infringe upon the trademark of Ramada International.
This was a case where an order of injunction issued by the court on September 23, 2021, was repeatedly violated by the defendants. The case involved a trademark dispute between Ramada International, Inc. (the plaintiff) and Defendant 1 (La-Ramada World Pvt. Ltd.) and Defendant 2 (a director and shareholder of Defendant 1).
A Bench of Justice C. Hari Shankar noted that “Injunction orders passed by Courts cannot be treated as waste paper. The defendants were, apparently, cocking a snook at the Court, by following up the compliance of each injunction, granted by this Court, with a further act of disobedience the very next day or the day after.”
The case was brought by Ramada International against Defendant 1 and Defendant 2 for trademark infringement of the "RAMADA" trademark, along with objections to certain domain names and the hotel name "La Ramada World Resort and Spa."
Advocate Ashwani Balayan appeared for the Plaintiff and Advocate Dharmendra Sharma appeared for the Defendants.
The Court had found merit in the plaintiff's claims and issued a summons, along with an interim injunction on September 23, 2021. The injunction restrained the defendants from using the plaintiff's trademark or any confusingly similar mark. Defendant 1 was also ordered to change its name, and steps were ordered to suspend infringing domain names.
The Court noted that despite receiving notice of the injunction, the defendants failed to comply with the court's orders, even leading to the suspension of infringing domain names by the domain name registrars upon the plaintiff's request. The defendants repeatedly violated the injunction by creating new websites and using the same or similar infringing marks. The Court extended the injunction to cover these new websites as well.
Again, Defendant 2's non-compliance with the court's orders led to warrants being issued for their appearance. Defendant 2 finally appeared, and the court suspended the non-bailable warrants upon a deposit of Rs.10 lakhs. Defendant 2 did not comply.
The Court found Defendant 2's actions to be in contempt of court. Various disobedient acts, including on social media, were noted.
The Court ordered Defendant 2 to deposit Rs. 5 lakhs within four weeks, and failure to do so would result in one week's incarceration. The Court emphasized that incarceration would be the last resort.
“In the event of failure to deposit the said amount, Defendant 2 would be taken into custody to suffer incarceration in civil prison for a period of one week.”
Cause Title: Ramada International, INC v. La-Ramada World Private Limited & Anr.,[Neutral Citation No.: 2023:DHC:6168]
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