The judgment established the principles for determining territorial jurisdiction, trademark infringement, and passing off based on deceptive similarity, providing guidance on the application of the Copyright Act and Trade Mark Registration in such cases.

( 1 ) PLAINTIFFS have filed this application under order 39 Rule 1 and 2 read with Section 151 Civil Procedure Code, inter alia, praying that plaintiff no. 1 is in the business of manufacturing and marketing of wide range of food preparations for human consumption including soya flour and other food articles made of soya since 1978 and has been selling and marking the said goods under the trade name RUCHI, which it has used along with trade mark nutrela in an artistic label. Plaintiff no. 1 adopted the said trademark in the year 1978 and continuously, commercially and in the course of trade used the said trade mark since then till date as its proprietor and through its licensee being plaintiff no. 2 under licence agreement dated 8/8/1991.

( 2 ) IT was contended before me by Mr. Bansal, learned counsel for the plaintiff that the plaintiff/applicant has been using the said mark in a distinctive label having distinctive artistic features including artistic get up, make up, colour scheme and lettering style. For that plaintiff also holds copyrights under Registration no. A-26732/80. It has been contended by Mr. Bansal that ruchi forms an essential key, distinguished and material part of the said mark RUCHI NUTRELA as also of the copyright. It was further contended that RUCHI is also forming an essential and distinguishing feature of the trading style of plaintiffs 1 and 2. It was further contended that plaintiff no. 1 has filed application for registration of the trade mark RUCHI under application no. 556001 in Class, 30 dated 7/8/1991 and there is likelihood of the registration certificate being issued in favour of the plaintiff. It was contended before me that plaintiffs goods and business are dependent on the said trade mark and label and plaintiffs have already built a valuable trade under the said trade mark/label and the figure of sale turnover for 1996-97 was rs. 8,70,67,160. 00. It was further contended that the applicant/plaintiff had been advertising the aforesaid goods bearing its mark/label through different medias and substantial money has been spent on such advertisements.

( 3 ) IT was further contended before me by Mr. Bansal that the plaintiff has acquired proprietary rights in the aforesaid trademark/label and the said mark/label has become sufficiently distinctive in the trade to be capable of protection. The applicant has been using the same without any interruption or interference from any corner whatsoever.

( 4 ) IT was further contended that defendant no. 1 is engaged in the same business as that of the plaintiffs and defendant no. 2 manages the business of defendant no. 1 and also sells and markets the impugned goods of the defendant no. 1. It is contended that since 1999, the defendants are using and selling their impugned goods in a mark/label consisting of the mark RUCHI having artistic feature which are similar to that of the plaintiffs. It has been contended by Mr. Bansal that by using identical and deceptively similar trade name RUCHI, which is an essential part of trademark/label of the plaintiff, but also the lettering style, artistic work, manner of writing, the placement and the impugned label of the defendant is also similar to that of the plaintiffs, which is violation of the plaintiffs rights. It was contended before me that use of the impugned trademark/label by the defendant is violation of the plaintiff trademark/label and rights in the mark RUCHI amounting to passing off. It was also contended that it is also in violation of the plaintiffs copyright in the artistic work which is registered. Therefore, the same infringes the right of the plaintiffs. It was further contended that defendants by the impugned adoption of the deceptively similar trademark/label which is deliberate, dishonest, fraudulent and improper and by doing so, defendants want to take advantage of the goodwill and reputation of the plaintiffs. Said action of the defendant is to cause deception and confusion in