Restaurant India News: Delhi Court Bars Bengaluru Restaurant From Using 'Carnatic' Tag After Trademark Dispute

A Delhi restaurateur has won a long-running trademark dispute after the Saket district court barred a Bengaluru-based company from using the name “Carnatic” for restaurant services and ordered the transfer of the contested domain to the plaintiff.

In a judgment delivered on October 29, District Judge (Commercial) Neelam Singh permanently restrained Lemon pepper Hospitality Pvt. Ltd., along with its directors, employees, and affiliates, from using the mark for any restaurant-related activity. The court held that the Bengaluru Company’s use of the name infringed upon the registered trademark of Delhi-based Carnatic Cafe, owned by restaurateur Pavan Jambagi.

“The defendants are permanently restrained from manufacturing, selling, offering for sale, marketing, advertising or rendering any restaurant-related or allied services under the mark ‘CARNATIC’ or any other mark, logo, device or domain name identical with or deceptively similar to the plaintiff’s registered trademark “CARNATIC CAFE,” the court stated in its order.

The court, however, observed that the admission effectively confirmed the infringement and that the plaintiff’s case remained uncontroverted by evidence. The court also directed the defendants to transfer the domain name to the plaintiff within four weeks and awarded damages of Rs 50,000 alongside the costs of Rs 10,000 in favour of the plaintiff.

The case was filed in April 2019, following which the court granted an ex-parte ad-interim injunction the same year. Lemonpepper Hospitality did not submit its written statement within the stipulated time, leading to its defence being struck off on March 5, 2020, leaving most of the plaintiff’s claims uncontested.

In November 2022, the defendants’ counsel submitted an affidavit from Managing Director Sunil Kumar, confirming compliance with the injunction and undertaking not to use the name “Carnatic” in the future.