PATANJALI FOODS LIMITED vs. META PLATFORMS INC & ORS. COMMERCIAL IP SUIT (LODGING) NO. 12374 OF 2023
The Plaintiff is a manufacturer and marketer of edible oils and is the registered proprietor of the mark MAHAKOSH for edible oils. The Plaintiff, during April 2023, came across a video circulating on Facebook page which contained disparaging remarks against their product along with its registered trademark MAHAKOSH. Therefore, Plaintiff issued cease and desist notices to Meta Platforms in April 2023 and sent an email requesting deletion of the video from the platform. However, the Defendants failed to respond and hence, Plaintiff has arrayed Defendant No. 3 in the nature of a John Doe action.
The Plaintiff pressed for urgent ad-interim relief before the Bombay High Court on the basis of infringement of registered trademark and claimed that unless the ad-interim reliefs were granted, the said videos would continue to hurt the reputation of the trademark of the Plaintiff.
The Plaintiff further claimed that the videos not only infringed the registered trademark of the Plaintiff, but also had the effect of spreading misleading and false information in the minds of the general public in respect of its trademark bearing product. The Plaintiff relied on trademark registration certificates of “MAHAKOSH” from the year 1998 onwards, the sales turnover and the amount spent towards advertisements and sales promotion to indicate the presence of the Plaintiff in the edible oil market.
The Court granted temporary injunction in favor of the Plaintiff in terms of the following:
i. The Defendants to be restrained from infringing the Plaintiff’s registered trademarks, including ‘MAHAKOSH FUTURE FIT’.
ii. Meta Platforms and Google to be restrained from circulating of the Impugned video.
iii. Meta Platforms and Google to remove the Impugned video from their online platforms.
However, the learned Counsel for Google objected the grant of the aforesaid relief and the Plaintiff on instructions submitted to not press the relief against the Google.
Hence, the Court made it clear that the ad-interim relief were to be operated against Meta Platforms and Defendant No. 3 and further directed Meta Platforms to take down the URLs of the video.
The application has now been listed for further consideration on 27 June, 2023.
To read the court order, click here.
