After a decade, popular Pune restaurant can revert to its original name ‘Burger King’ as court dismisses lawsuit filed by US fast food chain | Pune News
A Pune court has refused to issue an injunction order restraining a Pune-based fast food restaurant from using the name ‘Burger King’ after a 13-year-long legal battle. This means that the restaurant owned by Anahita Irani and Shapoor Irani and located on East Street can revert to its popular name ‘Burger King’ after a hiatus of over a decade. The restaurant stopped using the name in 2014 after multinational fast food company ‘Burger King’ sued it for violating trademark laws.
District Judge Sunil Vedpathak observed that though the trademark ‘Burger King’ belongs to the US-based fast food chain, the Pune restaurant was not infringing the trademark as it had been using the Burger King name since 1992, much before the US company started doing business in India under its brand.
In a complaint filed in the Pune court in 2011 through representative Pankaj Pahuja, the multinational fast food company claimed that the company was founded in 1954 by James McLamore and David Edgerton and operated a chain of 13,000 fast food restaurants in over 100 countries.
In its complaint, the firm said it had received several requests from Indian companies seeking to open franchises and opened its first restaurant in Delhi in November 2014. Other restaurants followed in Delhi NCR and Mumbai. In April 2015, a Burger King restaurant was launched in Pune.
The US-based multinational said it discovered in June 2009 that a restaurant of the same name was operating on East Street in Pune. “Upon discovery, the complainant immediately sent a notice in June 2009 through its lawyers/agents,” the company said.
Subsequently, the owners of the Pune restaurant, through their lawyer Abhijit Sarwate, claimed that they had been using the trade name of their restaurant since 1992, 14 years before Burger King registered Restaurant Trade Service in India.
They also argued that the words “Burger King” were descriptive rather than distinctive and that there were significant differences between the two logos.
“The defendant used a crown between the words Burger King to represent the word Burger King, while it appears that the plaintiffs never used it. Thus, as far as visual deception is concerned, there is none,” argued lawyer Sarwate.
Dismissing the complaint, Justice Vedpathak observed: “…as far as the relief of perpetual injunction is concerned, it is true that the plaintiff started providing services through restaurants under its brand Burger King in India, inter alia, in 2014, whereas since 1991-92, the defendants have been using the Burger King brand for providing restaurant services. Even the plaintiff did not file the registration certificate regarding registration of its mark in India under Class 42 before 1991-92.”
Sarwate told The Indian Express that the Pune restaurant’s victory over the US-based company was a victory of David over Goliath.
“The loss of the famous name ‘Burger King’ was quite a personal loss for the people of Pune. When it happened, it made headlines in every newspaper in Pune and angered the people. This legal victory proves that there is no place for arbitrariness and lawlessness by big business,” Sarwate added.
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