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Court Serves a Shocker to Eatery in Name Row

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High Court directs Aurangabad eatery that copied tony Mumbai restaurant’s name to stay shut till January 6 for violating order, asks it to donate Rs 2 lakh to charity.

An Aurangabad eatery accused of copying the name of tony Mumbai restaurant The Sassy Spoon has been ordered to stay shut till January 6 and spend Rs 2 lakh on charity for defying a court directive against the title’s use.

Justice Gautam Patel of the Bombay High Court also appointed a court receiver to take charge of Aurangabad’s Sassyy Spoon Pure Veg Restaurant and oversee destruction of material bearing resemblance to the real Sassy Spoon, which has outlets in Nariman Point and Bandra.

This is the first time in recent memory that such a directive has been passed by the high court in an intellectual property rights case.

The court, in an interim order on July 29, had asked the Aurangabad eatery to stop using the name ‘Sassy Spoon’ or a modified version with immediate effect. The eatery’s owners, Anand and Vrushali Deshmukh, later informed the court that they had complied with the order, but it emerged recently that they continued to run the establishment under the disputed name, making false representations before the judge.

Justice Patel took a very serious view of the couple’s conduct, but stopped short of hauling them off to jail after they agreed to follow the new directive and give money to a charitable cause. The couple will have to provide proof of their donation on January 4. The court receiver will decide on January 6 if their eatery can be re-opened.

Chocolate Spoon Company Pvt Ltd, which owns and runs The Sassy Spoon in Mumbai, had filed the intellectual property rights case.

During the first hearing itself, the company’s lawyers said that the Aurangabad eatery had been warned about the case. The court then passed the interim order.

“The plaintiffs use this mark in relation to their popular and highlyregarded restaurants in South Mumbai at Express Towers and at a second location in Bandra,” the court observed.

“The plaint discloses that the plaintiffs have, by use of this mark on their restaurants, acquired a quite considerable amount of goodwill and an enviable reputation within a very short period of time, inter alia, for the quality and range of their food as also their service.”

The judge sought a reply from the Deshmukhs. After the judge learned in October that they had not complied with the July 29 directive, he observed: “In a deliberate attempt at misdirection and deflection, the defendants have hung a bunting or curtain over the part of the restaurant’s signage. However, the offending name being used by them is still clearly visible. The other photographs show continued use of the infringing mark on invoices and menu cards.”

Even after the critical view, the Aurangabad eatery continued to use the name till December 13. “They [Deshmukhs] have also understood that should this court find that there is a slightest breach of this order hereafter there will be no further clemency of any kind shown, and this will result directly and inevitably in the maximum possible imprisonment term permissible in law,” the court said in its final warning to the couple recently.

Source: Mumbai Mirror

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