Delhi High Court declares ‘RITZ’ and ‘RITZ-CARLTON’ as well-known trademarks

The Delhi High Court has declared the trademarks ‘RITZ’ and ‘RITZ-CARLTON’ as well-known trademarks under Indian law and granted a permanent injunction restraining an Indian hotel operator from using the infringing names “Hotel Ritz”, “Ritz Hotel” and related domains..Justice Amit Bansal held,“The long duration for which the RITZ and RITZ-CARLTON marks have been in use by the plaintiffs, wide geographical area of their use, their knowledge among the general public and their goodwill and reputation due to the extensive promotion, publicity and extensive revenue generated by the plaintiffs, in India as well as other countries, the RITZ and RITZ-CARLTON marks have achieved the status of well-known trademarks.”.The suit was filed by The Ritz Hotel Limited (owners of Ritz Paris), The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company and Ritz Paris over infringement of their trademarks by an Indian entity. According to the plaintiffs, they discovered in November 2023 that the defendants were using domain names www.ritz-hotels.com and www.thehotelritz.com, which redirected to hotel booking platforms prominently displaying the ‘RITZ’ mark. The defendants were also promoting the hotel through third-party platforms such as MakeMyTrip, TripAdvisor, Trivago and Expedia.The plaintiffs alleged this amounted to infringement and passing off. They submitted extensive evidence of reputation, including use of the RITZ mark in India since at least 1969..In earlier hearings, the defendants agreed to discontinue use of the marks and domains in question, file compliance affidavits and refrain from using deceptively similar alternatives like “RITIZ” or “RITS.” However, violations persisted in the use of the mark on stationery and invoices.The Court ultimately issued the following directions:“A decree of permanent injunction is passed in terms of prayer clauses 88(a), 88(b) and 88(c) in favour of the plaintiffs and against the defendants. Further, in terms of prayer clause 88(e) of the plaint, directions are issued to the defendants to immediately discontinue the use of websites ‘www.thehotelritz.com’ and ‘www.ritz-hotels.com’.”.The Court also granted the plaintiffs' request for recognition of their trademark as a well-known trademark under Section 2(1)(zg) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999:“On the strength of the averments made in the plaint as well as the nature and volume of the documents placed on record, I am of the view that the plaintiffs have established well beyond doubt that the marks ‘RITZ’, ‘RITZ-CARLTON’... have acquired the status of well-known trademarks.”.Ritz was represented by Advocates Pravin Anand, Vaishali R Mittal and Gitanjali Sharma from Anand & Anand. .The defendants were represented by Advocate Rishub Kapoor..[Read Judgment]