Rishabh Plastic LLP (hereinafter Plaintiff) who is engaged in the business of manufacturing thermo-ware, durable and cost-effective plastic containers for storage and transportation, recently filed a Design Infringement suit against Ahmedabad-based Defendants. The said suit was filed by the Plaintiff to protect its statutory and common law rights of the in its registered design “NIKOLA” containers bearing registration no. 361251-001 in Class 09-03.

It was contended by the Plaintiff that the Defendants were manufacturing and selling containers under the name “Royal Ware Glamour” which were complete replica of the Plaintiff’s “NIKOLA” containers and were, therefore, infringing the registered design of the Plaintiff.

R.K. Dewan & Co. represented Rishabh Plastic LLP and was successful in obtaining an ex-parte ad-interim order, wherein, the Hon’ble Delhi High Court restrained all the Defendants from manufacturing, selling and offering to sale storage containers being slavish copy and obvious imitation of the Plaintiff’s registered design no. 361251-001. The Hon’ble Court also appointed two Local Commissioners to conduct search & seizure of goods/ containers bearing the infringing design. Accordingly, a team of R.K. Dewan & Co. assisted the Ld. Local Commissioner and conducted a successful raid at two premises of the Defendants in Gujarat.

As a consequence, the Defendants approached the Plaintiff and requested to amicably settle the matter and further came up with an offer to compensate the Plaintiff outside the court. The Plaintiff agreed to the said offer and accordingly, a joint application under Order XXIII rule 3 of Code of Civil Procedure along with a Settlement Agreement was moved by the Plaintiff and the Defendants to settle the matter as per the terms mentioned in the said Settlement Agreement.

As per the Settlement Agreement, the Defendants acknowledged the rights of the Plaintiff in the suit design ‘Nikola' bearing design registration no. 361251-001 dated 25th March 2022, and also agreed to destroy the moulds used to prepare the infringing plastic containers along with all the infringing products including but not limited to packaging material, storage containers etc.

Considering the large quantity of plastic containers seized by the Local Commissioners, the Hon’ble Court proposed to donate the infringing containers instead of destroying them. The said proposal was accepted by the Plaintiff and accordingly the Hon’ble Court directed the Defendants to donate the seized containers to Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Ahmedabad and further directed to furnish a copy receipt of the same to the Plaintiff. Furthermore, the Defendants were strictly directed to not retain, sell or in any manner use the Plaintiff’s designed containers for any commercial purposes.

In view of the fact that the said suit pertaining to Design Infringement came to its conclusion within just 7 (seven) months from institution, the Hon’ble Court was pleased to refund the full court fee amount of Rs. 2 lakhs to the Plaintiff and Decreed the suit in favour of the Plaintiff as per the terms of Settlement Agreement.

R. K. Dewan & Co. has been delivering insightful advice and services to assist its clients in upholding and protecting their Intellectual Property Rights throughout India and Globally. Strategically located at Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Pune and Kolkata in consonance with branch offices of Indian Patent & Trademark, R. K. Dewan & Co. ensures a geographical advantage as well as associates network all over the world since last 80 years.