We had earlier blogged about the District Court’s order over here. The Plaintiff in this case – Hilltone Hotel – located in Mount Abu, had filed this suit against Hilton International Corporation alleging ‘deceptive similarity’ to its own name and praying for the Hilton International to be restrained from using the ‘Hilton’ name. Hilltone Hotel apparently had a trademark registration that was prior to Hilton’s registration. The District Court in its Order had noted that:
“The defendant, in any state of India, may not use the registered trademark Hotel Hilltone of the plaintiff or any kind of sabotage in it by using any kind of misleading logo and mark. It may not use and enjoy by causing confusion of being plaintiff’s hotel and in collaboration with any other Indian establishment may not carry on business of hotels and food items under such duplicate trade mark.The defendants (Hilton International Corporation and Hilton International) are restrained by permanent injunction that they not give the threat to the plaintiff to use the name of Hotel Hilltone and the defendant may not create any obstruction of any kind in the manufacturing and sale of the food items to be manufactured by the plaintiff under the registered trademark.”
The Rajasthan High Court refused to stay the order, stating instead that “When registration of the Hilton Hotel has not been quashed and it is still in existence in their name and they are running their business in the said registered name, as such their apprehension is totally unfounded that due to judgement impugned they will suffer irreparable loss”. This is not the most logical of statements, since in the hospitality sector, a brand name is everything. If the hotel cannot use the ‘Hilton’ brand name it is likely that its business will indeed suffer disastrous losses.
However given the fact that the media so far has reported that Hilton has only been denied a ‘stay’ on the order of the district court, it is possible that the High Court is yet to hear the entire appeal and decide the matter on merits. Given that ‘Hilton’ is a well known brand name of international repute, it would have been expected that the HC would stay the operation of the district court’s permanent injunction order, pending the outcome of the appeal.
Unfortunately the orders of the Rajasthan High Court are not yet available on the website of the High Court.
Perhaps the judge is of the opinion that the Hilton Hotels have not acquired an extraterritorial repute- through advertisement, as having being held in the landmark Dongre judgement, or even otherwise from being a brand name! Or just maybe, as stated , the court hasn’t looked into the matter on merits, which if true, is rather shocking for a hotelier group of such repute!