Permanent injunction from using the trade name - "ISKCON"

Introduction

The Bombay High Court on Friday has said that ISKCON is a "well-known trademark" in India and is associated with the religious organization International Society for Krishna Consciousness. A single-judge bench of Justice Burgess P Colabawalla passed an order, on a commercial intellectual property suit filed by the religious organization against the apparel company- ISKCON Apparel Pvt. Ltd., alleging that the manufacturer had infringed its registered trademark to sell clothes online.

The religious organization submitted that it discovered infringement in February 2020 and sent a repeated summons to the company which went unanswered.

The plea said the defendant, running an online clothing business had changed the company's name to Alcis Sports Pvt. Ltd, but continued to use the term 'ISKCON' in all of their products.

The court in March, this year granted an ad-interim injunction order restraining Apparel Company from using the trade name until the case was decided. The court said that the religious organization would likely suffer an irreparable injury if the infringement by Apparel Company continues, as the organization's reputation is at stake, both nationally and internationally.

The court observed, since ISKCON is a coined mark that is exclusively associated with the plaintiff's religious organization, it undoubtedly deserves the highest degree of protection. The documents showed that the trademark ISKCON has acquired immense and long-standing reputation and goodwill and using the term ISKCON so flexibly will cause harm.

As per the plea, ISKCON was founded in 1966 in the USA and within a short period, the movement spread all over the world and gained immense popularity and fame.

The first ISKCON temple was constructed in India in 1975 in Vrindavan, also known as Sri Krishna Balaram Temple.

The plea said that presently there are more than 600 ISKCON temples all over the world, including India, USA, etc.