Khushi Bajpai
Published on: September 15, 2022 at 21:59 IST
A Civil Court in Bengaluru on Tuesday issued a temporary injunction restraining Samsung India and One-Story Experiences from using the trademark ‘CONCIERGE’, claimed by the Concierge Conglomerate comprising Lesconcierges Services Pvt. Ltd. and Club Concierge Services (India) Pvt. Ltd.
The Plaintiff company’s founder, Dipali Sikand, claims to be the registered owner of the ‘CONCIERGE’ mark since May 2016.
It is claimed that under the ‘CONCIERGE’ Service (India) Pvt. Ltd.
It is claimed that under the ‘CONCIERGE’ service, the plaintiff company conceptualized and designed the President Club Loyalty Program for Samsung with the aim of improving Samsung’s overall relationship with its dealers.
However, it is claimed that last year Samsung hired Story Experiences for identical services and both Samsung and Story Experiences are now using the plaintiff’s ‘CONCIERGE’ mark on their brochures, publicity material, advertisements, etc.
The defendants argued that as per Clause 4(1) of the Terms of Agreement entered between the plaintiff company and Samsung, the electronics company has every right to use the word that has been coined during the plaintiff’s service contract.
The court, however, observed that the documents produced by the plaintiff sufficiently disclose that Sikand has been using the word ‘CONCIERGE’ since 1998 for her services and it is only after Samsung came to know about such searches, did it hire the plaintiff company.
The material also disclosed that the word ‘CONCIERGE’ was used by Samsung only subsequent to the hiring of services of plaintiff company.
It added:
“When the word has been used for different services other than the dictionary meaning certainly it will become distinctive. If the word is not distinctive, certainly the plaintiff would not have obtained the trademark registration on a word mark ‘CONCIERGE’.”
Thus, finding the plaintiff to be prior user of the trademark ‘CONCIERGE’, the court granted temporary injunction in its favor.