The Bombay High Court granted an ad-interim injunction to the Plaintiff as the strong prima facie case was made out against the Defendant, who was restrained from using the mark "Yokoso Sizzlers" in any manner. A single-judge bench comprising Hon’ble Justice Manish Pitale held that merely because Yoko and Yokoso have different meanings in the Japanese language, it would not amount to the dissimilarity of the marks in question.
Brief Facts:
It was the case of the Plaintiff that since the year 1986, it has been operating in the hospitality business and adopted the aforesaid trade mark “YOKO sizzlers” in the year 1986 itself and got it registered in 1994. The trademark of the Plaintiff had registration in two classes i.e. class 30 and class 42, documents pertaining to which were placed on record. Plaintiff also mentioned that it runs outlets all over the country, and it has a presence in the form of its outlets internationally in various countries like UAE, UK and Qatar.
Plaintiff further claimed that in August 2022, they came across the restaurant of Defendant at Pune, bearing the impugned mark “Yokoso Sizzlers”. It was also found that Defendant operates a website www.yokososizzlers.com which is similar to the website of the Plaintiff i.e. www.yokosizzlers.com. After noticing the restaurant mentioned above of Defendant, Plaintiff issued a cease and desist notice to Defendant on 25th August, 2022, calling upon them to stop using the impugned mark "Yokoso Sizzlers". Defendant sent its reply to the said notice and claimed that there was no similarity between the two marks and that the two words Yoko and Yokoso have different meanings in the Japanese language. Against this backdrop, Plaintiff had approached this Court.
Observation of the Court:
This Court observed that Plaintiff had placed sufficient material on record to show the presence of the said brand in the public domain for a considerable period of time and also to indicate the large-scale presence of Plaintiff in this country and internationally. It was also an undisputable fact that Plaintiff had registered the trademark Yoko Sizzlers in 1994.
In the opinion of this Court, a bare comparison between the two marks shows that Defendant have added the alphabet ‘SO’ to Plaintiff's registered trademark. Hence, prima facie, the impugned mark of Defendant was found to be deceptively similar to the registered trademark of Plaintiff. Further, it was noted by the Court that Defendant had used not only the deceptively similar mark for its restaurant but also other aspects of the brand of Plaintiff i.e. layout of the restaurant and table mats used therein. The other aspects indicate Defendant's efforts to copy Plaintiff's business practices associated with the registered trademark "Yoko Sizzlers".
This Court also perused the response to the cease and desist notice on the Defendant's part and concluded that merely because Yoko and Yokoso have different meanings in the Japanese language, it would not amount to the dissimilarity of the marks in question. Therefore, it was found that a strong prima facie case exists against Defendant for granting ad-interim relief, and the balance of convenience also lies in favour of Plaintiff.
The decision of the Court:
The Bombay High Court restrained the Defendant from using the mark "Yokoso Sizzlers" or any other trademark identical with or deceptively similar to the Applicant's registered trademark "Yoko Sizzlers" under No.1236861 in Class 42 as well as 631157 in Class 30.
Case Title: Yoko Sizzlers vs Yokoso Sizzlers
Coram: Hon’ble Justice Manish Pitale
Case no.: IA (LODGING) NO. 400 OF 2023 IN COMMERCIAL IP SUIT (LODGING) NO. 372 OF 2023
Advocate for the Applicant/Plaintiff: Mr. Rashmin Khandekar
Read Judgment ;
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