The Court passed the directions while dealing with a batch of suits filed by Seagate Technology LLC and Western Digital Technologies Inc against a bunch of entities selling refurbished HDDs.
The defendant companies were Daichi International, Consistent Infosystems Pvt Ltd Geonix International Pvt Ltd. and Cubicor Information Systems Pvt Ltd.
Seagate and Western Digital argued that the HDDs manufactured by them become unserviceable after a period of time but still retain functionality and when used equipment is sold and discarded globally, consignments of these end-of-life HDDs are refurbished by various entities and sold to consumers.
It was stated that the end-of-life HDDs are imported to India by various importers, and resold to refurbishers who, in turn, remove the marks of ‘Seagate’ or ‘Western Digital’ from the HDDs, refresh and repackage it under their own brand names, and sell it as refurbished products with an extended two-year warranty.
It was argued that these HDDs could not be sold as refurbished products since the removal of their brand name from the product amounted to impairment, which was not permitted as per Sections 30(3) and 30(4) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999.
Source: Barandbench
