The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the Registrar of Trademarks to respond to Hero MotoCorp’s appeal against the registration of the “MotorHunk” trademark, which had been granted to Nitin Khanna, founder of automobile accessories platform MotorHunk.
Hero MotoCorp claimed before Justice Jyoti Singh that the “MotorHunk” trademark was deceptively similar to “Hunk”, which is its registered trademark for vehicles.
The company argued that the use of the disputed trademark was driven by a malicious intent to gain from the strong reputation and goodwill it has built. Adoption of the trademark will result in confusion in the course of trade and in the minds of the public regarding the origin of the goods, it said.
“Motor” is a generic and descriptive word in the automobile industry and cannot function as a shield to distinguish the two marks, therefore, the only distinctive feature between the two marks is the term “hunk”, which ultimately is similar to its mark “Hunk”, making the two marks identical, Hero MotoCorp said.
The court issued a notice to Khanna and posted the matter for further hearing on May 11.
However, Khanna’s counsel argued that marks should be compared as a whole and should be seen in their entirety. The counsel said its mark is an artistic device mark, whereas Hero MotoCorp’s mark is a word mark.
He said Hero MotoCorp had stopped using the mark as its motorcycle model under the “Hunk” name was discontinued in 2017, thus the former no longer enjoyed any goodwill or trade reputation in relation to the “Hunk” mark.
According to Khanna’s counsel, the trademarks registry in October held that the marks when compared were different.
“The rival markings differ both phonetically and visually, thus neither the public nor the trade will be confused,” the trademark registry said, adding “there is no evidence on record to show that either Khanna has copied or dishonestly adopted the impugned mark. I have no hesitation to hold that Khanna’s mark is visually, structurally and phonetically different from the Hero’s mark.”
