On principles of forum conveniens impugned petition has been dismissed.

1. In the Application for grant of leave, Notice was ordered and the respondent entered appearance though counsel and I have heard the augments on both sides.

2. The matter relates to infringement of the Trade Mark "Duroflex" and the applicant has prayed for leave to file the Suit before this Court. The cause of action according to the applicant is the place where the Registry of Trade Mark is situate and in the instant

case, the Trade Mark Registry is at Chennai. The Application has also stated that the applicant runs a depot/office at Chennai within the jurisdiction of this Court. The applicant however has it office at Alleppey, Kerala. The respondent is a company registered and having its Registered Office in Delhi. In the Plaint, there is no allegation that the respondent has sold his goods, bearing the offending Trade Mark within the jurisdiction of this Court.

3. The learned counsel for the applicant would submit that it has been settled in various decision that when a Trade Mark is registered, the cause of action would arise in all the places, where there are Branch Offices of the Trade Mark Registry.

4. The learned counsel relied on S.B.S. Jayam & Co. v. Gopl Chemical Industries, India, 1977 (1) MLJ 286, which is one of the earliest judgment and referred to in all cases, where the question relating to cause of action arises. The learned Judge held as follows:

"10.... Therefore even though the plaintiff’s mark in this case had been registered under the Trade Marks Act, 1940 at Bombay, by virtue of Section 136(2) of the Act, it shall be deemed to have been registered only at Madras. There can be no dispute that in respect of the plaintiffs registered Trade Mark as at present only the Registry at Madras had jurisdiction. If any action in respect of the said mark of the plaintiff is to be taken under Sections 16, 22, 44 or any other Section of the Act, it has necessarily to be taken only at the Registry at madras and not at Bombay. Therefore, there is no merit in the contention that the registration of the plaintiffs mark having been done at Bombay (under the Trade Marks Act, 1940) there is no question of the situs of the property being at Madras.

18.... Even so, when the property is at Madras, I fail to see how it can be said that the infringement was only in Andhra Pradesh and not at Madras. After all what the plaintiff complaints is that his registered Trade Mark is being infringed. Even, though the product with the alleged offending mark has not come to the Madras market, there can be little doubt that the alleged infringements is not only at the place where the defendant markets his goods but also where the plaintiffs property itself is situated."

5. In Officine Lovato S.P.A. v. Ajay Kumar Aggarwal, 2005 (2) CTMR 102, it was held as follows:

4.... It is not in dispute that the address for service of the plaintiff, when it moved for its registration of Trade Mark, is within the jurisdiction of the Trade Marks branch office at Chennai and, therefore, it would be the appropriate office. Therefore, tough the Trade Mark is registered and reflected in the register maintained in the head office of the Trade Marks Registry at Mumbai, yet the Trade Marks Registrys branch office at Chennai would be the appropriate office for the purpose of Section 18 of the Trade Marks Act. As already stated, Section 18 deals with an Application for registration of a Trade Mark. Reading Section 5 and 6 of the 1999 Act with Rule 4 of the Rules, there is no difficulty at all in concluding that the suits of the Trade Mark involved in this case is at Chennai.

6. In my opinion, the jurisdiction of the Court as prescribed under Section 105 of the Act and under Section 134 of the new Act do not affect the right of a party complaining infringement of a Trade Mark to go before the Court within whose jurisdiction the suits of the Trade Mark is situated. Learned counsel appearing for the defendants brought to my notice a book on "Law of Tra