The main legal point established in the judgment is the protection of distinctive trademarks and domain names under the Trade Marks Act, emphasizing the likelihood of confusion and deception as grounds for granting injunctions.

JUDGMENT :

Manmohan Singh, J.

By this order, I propose to decide the pending interim application being I.A. No. 3412/2010 filed by the plaintiff under Order XXXIX, Rules 1 and 2 read with Section 151 CPC in a suit for permanent injunction restraining defendant from using the website name nrbearing.com.

2. The case of the plaintiff is that plaintiff is a renowned company in the business of manufacturing needle roller bearings, ball bearings and various other types of roller bearings which are used in the automotive industry and all other engineering industries to reduce friction, for the more than 44 years at the time of filing of the suit.

3. The plaintiff was incorporated as Needle Roller Bearing Co. Ltd. but changed its name to NRB Bearing Ltd. in April 1990. The profit of the plaintiff for the year ending 31st March, 2009 is stated to be Rs. 53.45 crores and expenditure on advertisement is stated to be more than Rs. 82.47 lacs.

4. The plaintiff is stated to be owner of the trademark NRB which was first time registered in favour of the plaintiff on 27th May, 1965. Subsequently, "NRB" has been registered in favour of the plaintiff in different classes. Details of various trademark registrations in favour of the plaintiff obtained from time to time is given in Paras 6-12.

5. The plaintiff created a domain name "nrbbearings.com" on 28th August, 1997 which was to expire on 27th August, 2013. Plaintiff intended to renew the domain name for further periods.

6. It has been stated that the plaintiff has huge name in the market of ball bearings and NRB bearings are world renowned. The consumers always associate NRB bearing to plaintiff's products.

7. It is the case of the plaintiff that its attention was drawn to the defendant company which has been incorporated only in the year 2011. The defendant had, according to the plaintiff, adopted an identical trade mark and also an identical corporate name. On the receipt of the said information the plaintiff addressed two notices dated 31st October 2012 and 27th November 2012 to the defendant, out of which though the first notice dated 31st October 2012 was served on the defendant, second returned as unserved.

8. It is the case of the plaintiff that the plaintiff came to know that defendant is also purporting to sell the ball bearings and related products under the plaintiff's name on defendant's website which is deceptively named as "nrbearing.com".

9. It is stated that defendant has fraudulently named its website by deleting the letter "b" which appears two times in the plaintiff's domain name. Both the marks are deceptively similar and the defendant is seeking to use the plaintiff's domain name to pass off its goods as that of the plaintiff and ride upon the plaintiff's reputation and goodwill through misrepresentation as per the impugned domain name. Defendant has its own name "Windsor" but only to attract innocent customers, the defendant has kept the name of its website in confusing manner, trying to show that there is some connection between the plaintiff and the defendant's products. Such illegal use of plaintiff's trademark and company name is damaging the reputation and goodwill of plaintiff on one hand and seeking to confuse and mislead the customers on the other hand.

10. The plaintiff has prayed that the defendant therefore be restrained by permanent injunction from in any manner using the trademark NRB Bearings in any form deceptively, confusingly or otherwise would not affect the defendant in any manner as the defendant in its own website is seeking to advertise its goods from various websites namely www.bushbearing.com, www.hydraulingpumps.in, www.axlehub.com, www.circlip.biz, and www.autobolts.com.

11. On the other hand, it is the case of the defendant that the present suit is liable to be dismissed as ingredients of infringement and passing off are not made out against defendant and the suit is filed without authorization and is liable to be dismissed under Order 7 Rule 11 read with O