Bombay High Court Refused Urgent Hearing of Republic TV’s Plea Seeking Rs. 100 crores Damages in Trademark Infringement Suit

Bombay High Court Refused Urgent Hearing of Republic TV’s Plea Seeking Rs. 100 crores Damages in Trademark Infringement Suit

The Bombay High Court by its single-judge Justice Manish Pitale refused to grant urgent hearing in the suit filed by the Republic TV seeking interim against the Telugu news channel, RTV News for alleged trademark infringement of its logo.

The Court observed that the Telangana based Rayadu Vision Media Limited was yet use a disputed logo on its channel, the Bombay High Court refused an urgent hearing to ARG Outlier Media Private Limited- owner of Republic TV- in a copyright infringement suit.

In the suit filed in March 2023, the plaintiff- ARG Outlier Media Private Limited, parent company of Republic TV had sought for a perpetual injunction against the defendant- Rayudu Vision Media Ltd from using the trade mark ‘RTV News Network’, logo ‘R.’

The plaintiff submitted that it was incorporated in 2016 and was running three different channels in three languages namely, Republic TV, Republic Bharat and Republic Bangla.

The suit has sought for Rs. 100 crores damages against Rayudu for its alleged unfair trade practices leading to damage to Republic. The plea said that around February 4, 2023, Republic TV came across a YouTube channels with the name RTV.

Republic alleged in the suit that Rayudu copied its trademark and was using a logo that was deceptively similar to Republic’s logo. The plea also stated that the company had illegally adopted an identical or deceptively similar trademark as used and registered by the plaintiff and was conquering the ‘immense goodwill’ of the plaintiff.

The defendant Rayudu through its affidavit in reply pointed out that they have been using the logo ‘RTV’ since 2007. It claimed that the channel had been using the term ‘RTV’ much prior to Republic which was incorporated only in 2016. It further claimed that it was an honest user of the mark as it came from the owner’s family name - Rayudu.

The learned Counsel Ravi Kadam along with Advocate Rashmin Khandekar for Phoenix Legal appearing for the Plaintiff submitted before the High Court that there was urgency in the matter as there was likelihood of the Defendant starting a news channel with the impugned logo in the near future.

Per contra, the learned Senior Counsel Sharan Jagtiani along with Advocate Hiren Kamod appearing for the Defendant submitted that an application was already filed before the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for permission for up-linking and down-linking, using the impugned logo.

It was submitted that presently, the Defendant has not started using the impugned logo in the context of its satellite news channel.

In view of this, Justice Pitale found no urgency and posted further hearing in Republic TV’s plea to 5th June, 2023. “Liberty is reserved to the parties to move the vacation court, in case of urgency,” the judge added.