A two-year trademark dispute between Peps, the largest spring mattress manufacturer in India, and a United Kingdom bed manufacturer has concluded in favour of the Indian company. The Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), Chennai, dismissed the rectification petition filed by HYPNOS UK by an Order dated April 16, 2015.<\/p>\n
In 2012, HYPNOS UK initiated a trademark rectification proceeding before the IPAB seeking the cancellation of Peps’s registered and commercially established “HYPNOS” mark. The British company claimed that its mark had acquired trans-border reputation in India through spill-over from its international use. Peps contested this claim, submitting that HYPNOS UK’s mark was not well-known among Indian consumers and that Peps had established continuous and consistent use of the mark in the Indian market, thereby acquiring recognition among domestic consumers.<\/p>\n
The Appellate Board was required to determine whether Peps’s prior use of the trademark in India superseded HYPNOS UK’s claim of trans-border reputation. Peps placed extensive evidence before the Board establishing the mark’s popularity in India. The Board found the evidence submitted by Peps sufficient to establish local prior use and rejected HYPNOS UK’s claim of trans-border reputation for want of adequate proof, deciding in favour of Peps vide Order dated April 16, 2015.<\/p>\n
The outcome reflects the significance of diligent intellectual property portfolio management. A company’s capacity to produce comprehensive evidence of prior and consistent use is a decisive factor in trademark rectification proceedings of this nature.<\/p>\n
This article is for general information and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult a qualified attorney before acting on any matter discussed here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Peps successfully defended its \u2018HYPNOS\u2019 trademark against a UK manufacturer\u2019s rectification suit, with the Appellate Board recognising its established Indian reputation. This case highlights the significance of diligent IP management for Indian companies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":42,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,11],"tags":[7140,7141,177,4002,231,200,5569],"class_list":["post-21532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intellectual-property","category-trademarks","tag-hypnos","tag-indian-mattress-companies","tag-intellectual-property-appellate-board","tag-ip-management","tag-peps","tag-trademark-litigation","tag-trademark-rectification"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21532","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=21532"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149776,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21532\/revisions\/149776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}