Trademarks

One Letter Short of Original: A SUPREME Trademark infringement

Gaurav Mishra · · 6 min read

: A conceptual image of stacked PVC pipes forming the shape of a courthouse column, symbolising how an everyday industrial product became the subject of high-value trademark litigation. Featured image for: One Letter Short of Original: A SUPREME Trademark infringement

Summary

Supreme Industries Limited, the plastics manufacturer behind the SUPREME mark since 1987, sought an interim injunction against Moorthi Rabeha, a PVC pipe seller using the registered mark “SUPREMES GOLD” with an “SG” logo. The Bombay High Court examined whether Rabeha’s own registration could shield her from an infringement claim, and found the registration prima facie ex facie illegal because it mirrored Supreme Industries’ mark without any meaningful distinction. The court restrained Rabeha’s use of the mark on an interim basis, holding that a prima facie case of trademark infringement, copyright infringement, and passing off had been made out. The ruling reinforces that a registered trademark is not an absolute shield once the essential features of a senior, well-established mark have been bodily lifted.

Background

A trademark nurtured over nearly four decades, backed by more than Rs. 10,000 crore in annual sales, faced a challenge from a rival that had added little more than a single letter and a colour scheme borrowed wholesale. The Bombay High Court was called upon to decide whether that alteration was enough to escape a claim of SUPREME trademark infringement.

The Supreme Industries Limited (“Supreme Industries”) conceived and adopted the trade mark “SUPREME” in 1987 for its plastic products, later making the mark its house mark and part of its corporate identity. It secured eleven registrations across Classes 17 and 19, the earliest dating to 2003, and registered copyright in a stylised artwork created in 1997 that paired the word “SUPREME” with the tagline “People who know plastics best.” Moorthi Rabeha (“Rabeha”), a manufacturer and seller of PVC pipes since 2015, held registration for the mark “SUPREMES GOLD” with an “SG” logo, granted on 25 November 2021. Supreme Industries discovered this registration during a routine trademark registry search in June 2024, filed a rectification application seeking cancellation, and subsequently instituted Commercial IP Suit No. 336 of 2024 after encountering Rabeha’s actual goods in the market in October 2024. The Interim Application seeking injunctive relief was reserved on 12 December 2025 and pronounced on 19 January 2026.

Questions Before the Court

    • Whether Rabeha’s registered mark “SUPREMES GOLD” with the “SG” logo is deceptively similar to Supreme Industries’ registered “SUPREME” marks under Section 29 of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 (“Trade Marks Act”).
    • Whether the court could examine the validity of Rabeha’s registration at the interlocutory stage despite a pending rectification application under Section 124.
    • Whether Section 17 of the Trade Marks Act, which limits protection to a mark as a whole, defeated Supreme Industries’ claim over the word “SUPREME.”
    • Whether non-disclosure of an earlier refusal to register the word mark “SUPREME” in Class 19 amounted to material suppression.
    • Whether Supreme Industries made out a case for passing off independent of its registered rights.

Plaintiff’s Arguments (Supreme Industries)

    • Continuous, uninterrupted use of “SUPREME” since 1987, evidenced by an invoice from 1993 and eleven subsisting registrations in Classes 17 and 19.
    • Copyright registration in the original stylised artwork, substantially reproduced in Rabeha’s mark.
    • Sales turnover exceeding Rs. 10,000 crore and advertisement expenditure exceeding Rs. 140 crore for 2023-24, demonstrating goodwill and secondary meaning.
    • Rabeha’s mark subsumed the entirety of “SUPREME,” merely appending the letter “s” and the word “GOLD,” with the stylised font of “SUPREMES” copied identically.
    • Rabeha’s registration was obtained without the Registrar citing Supreme Industries’ conflicting marks, rendering it ex facie illegal and triggering the narrow exception for interlocutory scrutiny of registered marks.
    • The refusal of Supreme Industries’ own word mark application in Class 19 was immaterial since the infringement claim rested on the registered label mark, with no prosecution history estoppel pleaded by Rabeha.

Defendant’s Arguments (Rabeha)

    • “SUPREME” is a descriptive word incapable of exclusive appropriation, with roughly 500 companies using it as part of their trade names.
    • Supreme Industries’ mark did not appear on the Registrar’s list of well-known trade marks, and its own word mark application for “SUPREME” in Class 19 had been refused.
    • The rival marks differed in colour, font, artwork, and layout when compared side by side.
    • As registered proprietor of “SUPREMES GOLD,” Rabeha was entitled under Section 28 to use her own registered mark without restraint.

Court’s Analysis and Observations

Testing Deceptive Similarity Through the Consumer’s Eye

The court noted that the applicable test for SUPREME trademark infringement under Section 29 turns on the broad and essential features of the rival marks, not a side-by-side hunt for differences, drawing on the Supreme Court’s guidance in Parle Products Private Limited v. J.P. & Co. (1972 (1) SCC 618). The court observed that the products in question, plastic pipes and fittings, are goods of common use bought by consumers of average intelligence and imperfect recollection, a class particularly susceptible to being misled by overall impression rather than photographic detail. The court found that Rabeha’s mark “SUPREMES GOLD” reproduced the stylised depiction of “SUPREME” identically for the word “SUPREMES,” relegating “GOLD” and the “SG” logo to a subordinate, easily ignored position. The court further observed that Rabeha’s own written statement conceded customers would refer to the product as “SUPREMES GOLD” rather than by the “SG” logo, undercutting the claim that the logo distinguished the marks. The court also noted a discrepancy between the green colour in which Rabeha’s mark stood registered and the red colour in which it was actually used, mirroring Supreme Industries’ colour scheme, a factor the court treated as indicative of dishonest adoption.

Piercing a Registration That Is Ex Facie Illegal

The court held that although Section 28 ordinarily entitles a registered proprietor to use its own mark, this protection is not absolute, and reasoned that the Full Bench ruling in Lupin Ltd. v. Johnson and Johnson (2015 (1) Mh.L.J. 501) permits interlocutory scrutiny where a registration is ex facie illegal, fraudulent, or shocks the conscience of the court. The court found that the Registrar’s examination report had treated Supreme Industries’ marks as merely “conflicting” without applying the essential-feature test, and that Supreme Industries’ label mark stood registered without any disclaimer, a circumstance that ought to have prompted caution before granting Rabeha’s registration. On this basis, the court concluded that Rabeha’s registration was prima facie ex facie illegal, a finding central to the SUPREME trademark infringement claim surviving Rabeha’s own registration defence.

Section 17 and the Passing Off Claim

The court reasoned that Section 17, which denies exclusivity over a mere part of a composite mark, had no application here because Supreme Industries’ label mark consisted of nothing beyond the stylised word “SUPREME” itself, leaving no separate “part of the whole” to analyse. The court opined that Rabeha, having herself sought and secured registration incorporating “SUPREME,” was estopped from arguing the word was generic or descriptive, particularly as no evidence of genuine third-party use was placed on record despite the claim of 500 similarly named companies. Applying the principles on passing off recently restated by the Supreme Court in Pernod Ricard India Private Limited v. Karanveer Singh Chhabra Trading (2025 SCC OnLine SC 1701), the court found that Supreme Industries had established goodwill through decades of use and substantial sales, that Rabeha’s adoption without any trademark search constituted misrepresentation, and that a likelihood of confusion and consequent damage to Supreme Industries’ reputation existed.

Findings

In view of the observations and the arguments presented by both the parties, the Bombay High Court held that:

    • Rabeha’s mark “SUPREMES GOLD” with the “SG” logo is prima facie deceptively similar to Supreme Industries’ registered “SUPREME” marks.
    • Rabeha’s registration of “SUPREMES GOLD” is prima facie ex facie illegal, permitting the court to look behind the registration at the interlocutory stage.
    • Section 17 of the Trade Marks Act does not assist Rabeha, since Supreme Industries’ label mark comprises only the word “SUPREME” with no separable composite elements.
    • Supreme Industries made out a prima facie case of infringement of trade mark, infringement of copyright, and passing off.
    • The interim application was made absolute, restraining Rabeha’s use of the impugned mark pending final disposal of the suit.

Case Citation: The Supreme Industries Limited v. Moorthi Rabeha, Interim Application No. 4642 of 2025 in Commercial IP Suit No. 336 of 2024, 2026:BHC-OS:1417, High Court of Judicature at Bombay, decided on 19 January 2026. Available at http://indiankanoon.org/doc/190659891/.

Authored by Gaurav Mishra, IP Attorney, BananaIP Counsels

Filed underCase Reviews Intellectual Property Trademarks
Tags