22nd March, 2024The Plaintiffs in this case are A.O. Smith Corporation and its Indian subsidiary, A.O. Smith India Water Products Pvt. Ltd. The Plaintiff alleged infringement of its trademark ‘A.O. SMITH’ and ‘BLUE DIAMOND’ by the Defendants. The Defendants incorporated a company in the name of ‘Star Smith Export Pvt. Ltd.’ in August 2020, and filed a trademark application for registration of the word mark ‘STAR SMITH’ on a proposed to be used basis. The Plaintiffs have been using the mark \u2018A.O. Smith\u2019 since 1874 internationally and in India since 2006. The Plaintiffs claimed that the Defendants’ adoption of the mark ‘STAR SMITH’ for identical products like geysers, purification systems, water purifiers, RO systems and the mark \u2018BLUE DIAMOND\u2019 for water heaters is a clear case of trademark infringement.<\/p>\n
The Court relied on numerous landmark judgments to discuss the determination of the dominant part of trademarks, the assessment of the likelihood of confusion among consumers, and the evaluation of the defendant’s claim of honest concurrent use. The Court observed that the word \u2018Smith\u2019 is the dominant word of the mark A.O. Smith and adoption of the word \u2018Smith\u2019 for identical goods amounts to infringement. The Court also observed that the Defendants have been using a different mark namely \u2018Aero Star\u2019 before adopting \u2018STAR SMITH\u2019 in 2020. The adoption of \u2018SMITH\u2019 in conjunction with \u2018STAR\u2019 in 2020 seems prima facie dishonest adoption to ride on the goodwill of plaintiffs and cause confusion in the market, particularly on identical goods<\/p>\n
The Court dismissed the plea, thereby restraining defendants from using the marks \u2018STAR SMITH\u2019\/ \u2018STARSMITH\u2019 and \u2018BLUE DIAMOND\u2019 or any other mark that was deceptively similar to plaintiffs\u2019 marks for geysers, purification systems, water purifiers, RO systems and other cognate and allied goods.<\/p>\n
Citation:<\/strong> A.O. SMITH CORPORATION AND ANR. Vs. STAR SMITH EXPORT PVT. LTD. AND ANR. – IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI; 22nd March, 2024, I.A. 19011\/2022 & I.A. 12253\/2023 in CS(COMM) 532\/2022.<\/p>\n Authored by Naika Salaria, Associate, Trademarks & Copyrights<\/strong><\/p>\n The case note\/s in this blog post have been written by IP Attorneys at BananaIP Counsels based on their review and understanding of the Judgments. It may be noted that other IP attorneys and experts in the field may have different opinions about the cases or arrive at different conclusions therefrom. It is advisable to read the Judgments before making any decisions based on the case notes.<\/p>\n If you have any questions, or if you wish to speak with an\u00a0IP expert\/attorney<\/a>, please reach us at:\u00a0contact@bananaip.com<\/a>\u00a0or 91-80-26860414\/24\/34.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Delhi High Court addressed trademark infringement claims over the use of \u2018Smith\u2019 for identical water purification products. The decision highlights the assessment of dominant trademark elements and the likelihood of confusion among Indian consumers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":57,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5495,6,11],"tags":[12129,486,12128,5578,1047,12127,12130,41],"class_list":["post-101625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-case-reviews","category-intellectual-property","category-trademarks","tag-a-o-smith","tag-delhi-high-court","tag-dominant-part-of-trademarks","tag-indian-trademark-law","tag-likelihood-of-confusion","tag-smith-trademark","tag-star-smith","tag-trademark-infringement-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101625"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144514,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101625\/revisions\/144514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Disclaimer<\/h4>\n