SANDISK LLC Vs. MANISH VAGHELA & ORS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff has filed the present suit seeking permanent injunction restraining infringement of trademark, copyrights in the artistic work and passing off etc. against the defendants. Other connected relief are also sought.

(2.) The relevant facts of the present case are that the plaintiff company founded in 1988, is one of the world's largest dedicated providers of flash memory storage solutions under the house mark SANDISK and has been directly selling its products in the Indian market since 2005. The said plaintiff was previously known as SanDisk Corporation and pursuant to a name change in the month of July 2016, is presently known as SanDisk LLC. The plaintiff is a Fortune 500 and S & P 500 company which designs, develops and manufactures data storage solutions in a range of form factors using the flash memory, controller and firmware technologies. The plaintiff is the registered user of the trademarks SanDisk, and the Red Frame Logo belonging to the plaintiff.

(3.) It is stated in the plaint that the plaintiff's pioneering flash memory technologies, which are marketed directly to retail consumers and enterprises as well as to other equipment makers, are integrated into and/or used in a wide range of consumer electronic devices i.e. mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras etc. It is further stated that approximately 3,00,000 storefronts worldwide stock and sell the plaintiffs' products and the annual revenue of the plaintiff in the year 2015 was over USD 5 billion. The plaintiff also spends hundreds of millions of dollars in Research and Development of its products and on advertising.