The present suit was filed by one Akash Aggarwal, who sought a permanent and mandatory injunction restraining trademark and copyright infringement, passing off, delivery up, rendition of accounts, damages and other relief.
Aggarwal was the sole proprietor of an entity operating under the mark/name ‘V Tradition’, which was engaged in the business of sale of clothing for women on various retail e-commerce platforms, such as Amazon, Meesho, Myntra, as well as Flipkart.
He claimed that the brand had spent a substantial amount of money on creating garments and retaining models whose photographs were used for selling the products. The case of the plaintiff was that their mark had been pending for registration since 2021, despite having achieved a total sale of approximately ₹18 crore on Flipkart itself, since December 2020.
It was argued that Flipkart had allowed third parties, including several unconnected sellers, to portray themselves as ‘V Tradition’ and ride on the popularity of the products and designs of the plaintiff by using the mark ‘V Tradition’, in addition to using the photographs of the plaintiff’s products.
‘V Tradition’ thus filed a suit seeking a direction to restraining Flipkart from permitting third-party sellers to ‘latch on’ to their name and products.
Source: Barandbench
