Bengaluru: Small bakery chain wins battle for Happy Belly trademark with online giants Amazon

The civil court in its order permanently restrained Amazon Technologies “from infringing or passing off” the entrepreneur’s trademark “Happy Belly Bakes” under the mark / name /label ‘Happy Belly’ or with the similar name”. The court has also directed Amazon Seller Services Private Limited “to remove products deceptively similar to the plaintiff’s trademark in its online platform in India”.

In an order issued on August 30 this year, the 18th additional civil and sessions court in Bengaluru ruled that “merely because the defendants are having a worldwide market or global market for their products is not a ground to reject the registered trademark of plaintiff”.

“The intention of the legislators in introducing the Trademarks Act is to protect the trademark of the prior user or registered trademark holder. As per the Constitution of India, all are equal before the law. When the registered trademark is in use that cannot be deceptively used by the others,” the court ruled.

According to the case brought to the civil court in 2018 by Hinduja, she was asked around the Christmas season in 2017 whether her cakes and bakery products under the brand name “Happy Belly” were being sold online on the Amazon portal.

She found that a web page http://www.amazon.in/Happy-Belly was selling grocery and gourmet food under the name ‘Happy Belly’ which was deceptively similar to her registered Happy Belly Bakes trademark.

In the course of the original suit filed in the civil court, the entrepreneur argued she is the registered owner of the trademark Happy Belly Bakes from July 14, 2015, and the trademark is valid till 2025.

The court found that the defendants filed an application for registration of their trademark “Happy Belly” in India only on May 17, 2016.

“The application filed by the plaintiff for registration of trademark is on 14/07/2015 and the trademark registry has also issued the registration certificate about the word or device ‘Happy Belly Bakes’ in favor of the plaintiff,” the civil court said in its order.

“Therefore, it is clear that the plaintiff is the registered trademark owner of the trademark ‘Happy Belly Bakes’ and the plaintiff is the prior user of the trademark `Happy Belly Bakes ,” the civil court added.

Amazon Technologies Inc. and Cloudtail India Private Limited argued during the case that they are the users of the “Happy Belly” trademark in five foreign countries – Australia, Mexico, Great Britain, New Zealand and the EU, adding that registration of the trademark had been sought in several other jurisdictions.

“It is true that the defendant has obtained the registration of its trademark Happy Belly in various foreign countries. But the defendant has not had any such registered trademark in India,” the civil court ruled.

“Admittedly, the defendant no. 3 (Amazon Technologies) has obtained the registered trademark Happy Belly in several countries in the year 2016 and the plaintiff in India using the trademark Happy Belly Bakes for her products since 2010 and also obtained the trademark registration in the year 2015, which is much prior to the use of Happy Belly by the defendant no. 3 worldwide,” the civil court added.