India’s Madras high court has upheld a case by French retailer Carrefour that it is the sole owner of the “Carrefour” brand, thus prohibiting other parties from appropriating it as this would mislead consumers, Perishable Pundit reports.
Carrefour filed the application to prevent its name being used by other parties specifically in response to the operations of Chennai-based Carrefour House of Interiors.
The Madras High Court, in ruling in favour of Carrefour, found that the retailer would suffer irreparable injury should their injunction be refused.
Carrefour House of Interior’s owners pleaded that theirs represented an “honest adoption” of the name which they had been using since 2000, and that Carrefour should not be entitled to obstruct them from doing so.
Furthermore, in 2001 they had applied to officially register the name and their application had met no opposition.
Carrefour rebutted this argument by demonstrating that it had secured registration of the trademark in 1995.
