As Economic Times reports, Swedish retail giant IKEA has sent a legal team to initiate trademark infringement cases against over two dozen businesses in India. As previously blogged about, Inter IKEA Systems B.V. is the owner and franchisor of the IKEA Concept and reportedly has 45 trademark registrations in India (for eg. – Application Nos. – 1523574, 1523584, 343317 etc.) IKEA, a global furniture and home products store, recently received regulatory clearance for entry into India. In order to protect its brand name, goodwill and reputation, it has sent legal notices to several Indian companies using names similar to ‘IKEA’. The companies that have been targeted operate in different sectors ranging from furnishing, modular kitchens and packaging to HR consultancies, spas, event management and advertising firms. As reported, injunction orders have already been sought against 15 parties, a mix of small and big companies located in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chandigarh. Among other companies, IKEA’s lawyers have asked the founders of ‘Aikya Global’ to remove the company’s website, registered under the name Aikya, as it is phonetically similar to IKEA; Bangalore-based professional staffing company IKYA Human Capital Solutions has also received a legal notice from IKEA.
As blogged about here, the Delhi High Court injuncted an Indian company from using Wal-Mart as either their trademark or trade name on the ground that the same infringed the trademark of the foreign retail giant Wal-Mart which was seeking to enter India. Similarly, a Bangalore based company was injuncted from using US based ‘Groupon’s’ trademark via its daily deal site called ‘Groupon.in’. Recently, Carrefour a France based furniture retailer succeeded in injuncting a Chennai based company from using ‘Carrefour House of Interiors’ (Application No. 1046701) as their company name.
However, the legal aggression adopted by IKEA seems unprecedented and sends a strong message to Indian companies and may successfully deter them from using trademarks similar to that of big companies.
