Delhi High Court Stays Ruling Asking Amazon To Pay ₹339.25 Crore To ‘Beverly Hills Polo Club’ Over Trademark Infringement
The Delhi Excessive Court docket on Tuesday stayed a single choose ruling asking Amazon Applied sciences Inc to pay Rs. 339.25 crore damages and prices for trademark infringement of the posh way of life model, Beverly Hills Polo Membership.
A division bench comprising Justice C Hari Shankar and Justice Ajay Digpaul pronounced the order right this moment on Amazon’s plea for keep on the ruling.
Detailed order is awaited.
The order was reserved by the bench after listening to each the edges intimately on Might 07.
Amazon’s major enchantment has been listed for listening to on October 09.
About Single Choose Order
Remarking that Amazon’s actions amounted to ‘deliberate and wilful infringement’, the one choose had noticed that Amazon engaged “deliberate technique of obfuscation, pretending to put on totally different hats—one as an middleman, one as a retailer, and one as a model proprietor – all in an try and shift duty and evade legal responsibility for trademark infringement.”
Way of life Equities C.V and Way of life Licensing B.V had submitted that they had been the rightful homeowners of the Beverly Hills Polo Membership (BHPC) registered trademark. They had been engaged in enterprise of producing, distribution and sale of a variety of merchandise together with clothes, apparels, equipment, footwear, furnishings, textiles, watches and different way of life and private care merchandise underneath the trademark ‘BHPC’.
The BHPC trademark consists of a emblem that includes a charging polo pony with a mounted rider wielding a raised polo stick, symbolizing the game of polo. The plaintiffs said using the mark and emblem serves as a singular identifier of its model and symbolizes its affiliation with the game of polo, luxurious and premium way of life merchandise.
The plaintiffs alleged that Amazon Applied sciences Inc. was coping with attire merchandise underneath the label ‘Image’ consisting of a horse system mark virtually equivalent to the BHPC emblem system, amounting to infringement and unauthorized use. It was alleged that Cloudtail India Non-public Restricted acted as a retailer of the infringing attire merchandise, making them accessible on the market on the Amazon web site managed by Amazon Vendor Companies Non-public Restricted.
On 12 October 2020, the Court docket had issued ad-interim injunction, restraining Amazon Applied sciences and Cloudtail India from infringing the impugned mark and had additionally directed Amazon Vendor Companies to take down the impugned merchandise from its web site.
On 02 March, 2023, the Court docket held that the plaintiff was entitled to a everlasting injunction towards Amazon Applied sciences from utilizing BHPC emblem in any method.
The BHPC had claimed damages of USD 155.59 Million (INR1260 crores). Based mostly on the pleadings and proof, the Court docket was of the view that BHPC was entitled to USD 33.78 million of compensatory damages and an extra USD 5 million to compensate for the rise in promoting and promotional bills. Moreover, the Court docket had awarded Rs. 3.23 crore to BHPC for the price of proceedings.
Thus, in complete, the Court docket awarded BHPC Rs. 339.25 crore of damages and prices, to be paid by Amazon to the plaintiffs.
Title: Amazon Applied sciences Inc v. Way of life Equities
