B VIJAYA SAI Vs. RENAISSANCE HOTEL HOLDINGS INC

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is by the defendants; they have challenged the judgment and decree dated 21.6.2012 in O.S.3/2009 on the file of the Principal District Judge, Bengaluru Rural District, Bengaluru.

(2.) The respondent in this appeal being the plaintiff in the suit claimed decree of permanent injunction to restrain the defendants from using the trade mark SAI RENAISSANCE or any other trade mark identical with plaintiff s trade mark RENAISSANCE , operating, managing, franchising, directly or indirectly in hotels or restaurants or hospitality services; and to deliver up all the goods, labels or other printed materials bearing impugned marks SAI RENAISSANCE OR RENAISSANCE and for damages of Rs.3,50,000/- for having made use of its trade mark.

(3.) The plaintiff s case in brief is that it is a company incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware, The United States of America, involved in the business of hotel and hospitality services. It is the registered owner and proprietor of trade mark RENAISSANCE . It has been in the said service throughout the world since the year 1981 and in India since 1990. In the month of March 2008, the plaintiff came across a website, www.sairenaissance.com through which it discovered the defendant carrying on hotel business at Bengaluru and Puttaparthi under the name SAI RENAISSANCE incorporating the plaintiff s well-known trade mark, i.e., RENAISSANCE. Immediately the plaintiff got an investigation conducted and came to know that the defendants were carrying on hotel business with a trade mark resembling the plaintiff s trade mark. The signature, the business cards and the leaflets of the defendants were all got up in a manner so as to suggest an affiliation or association or nexus or connection in some manner with the business of the plaintiff. The defendant was carrying on business at Puttaparthi and near Ashrama of Sri Sathya Saibaba, Whitefield, Bengaluru, to which places number of devotees visit very frequently. The defendants adopted the plaintiff s trade mark with a calculation to misrepresent the customers as though their hotel was connected with or approved by the plaintiff in some manner. The defendants have a website www.sairenaissance.com which incorporates the plaintiff s trade mark and it is an attempt to pass-off the defendants business and services as and those of plaintiff s trade mark. Thus the plaintiff has suffered and is likely to suffer irreparable loss and damages to its reputation and goodwill. The plaintiff has stated that using its registered trade mark by the defendants amounts to infringement of its right and therefore the defendants are to be restrained from using its trade mark RENAISSANCE .