The Supreme Court has asked the Delhi High Court to settle the dispute between Toshiba Corporation and Tosiba Appliances Co of India, over the use of brand names 'Toshiba' or 'Tosiba.'
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has asked the Delhi High Court to settle the dispute between Japanese electrical giant Toshiba Corporation and Tosiba Appliances Co of India, over the use of brand names 'Toshiba' or 'Tosiba.'
While quashing the Calcutta High Court judgement recently, a bench headed by Justice SB Sinha transferred the matter to the Delhi High Court. "We will, however, request the Delhi High Court to consider the desirability of disposing of the suit by Toshiba Corporation against Tosiba Appliances as expeditiously as possible," it stated.
It also asked the High Court to decide whether a company can use a similar brand name belonging to a reputed company if the later had ceased to produce any such products under the impugned brand name for more than seven years.
The High Court would also decide whether the Registrar of Trade Mark had the authority to remove names of the items from the registers on the ground of non-use as contained in the Section 46 of the Trade and Merchandise Marks Act, 1958.
Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corp), set up in 1857, had moved the Delhi High Court seeking to restrain the Indian company from using the mark Tosiba or any other deceptively similar mark in respect of electrical goods on the ground that Tosiba was sounding similar to its trade mark Toshiba.
The said suit is still pending.
The Japanese company while stating that it had registered its brand name for electrical and electronic goods in India 56+since 1953 said, its name Toshiba was a combination of two words 'To' from Tokyo and 'Shiba' from Shibaura and thus was not a common name.
However, the Indian company alleged that the Japanes giant was not using the name for a long time in respect to several electrical products and therefore, the registrar had rightly deleted these products from registration.
While both the companies fought a legal battle in Delhi and Calcutta for the past two decades, the Calcutta High Court has upheld the registrar's view of deleting the names registered in the name of Toshiba Corp from the list.
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