Pune’s iconic eatery has won a 13-year legal battle against the United States-based fast-food giant Burger King Corporation. Now, the popular eatery will get to use its old name ‘Burger King’ again.
Burger King Corporation had filed a lawsuit against the eatery for tradename infringement. When the case was going on, the eatery owners had to shorten its name to just ‘Burger’.
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Burger King Corporation had moved a lawsuit against Anahita Irani and Shapoor Irani, owners of the eatery in Pune. The suit was filed for permanent injunction restraining infringement of trademark, passing off, damages and rendition of accounts, delivery, and others.
In 2008, the US-based fast-food giant became aware of a trademark application in the name of Iranis for the trademark ‘BURGER KING’ through a database search of the records of the Trademarks Registry, India in the year 2008. To safeguard its prior statutory rights, the plaintiff filed a caveat through its advocate. They also learnt about the existence of the Iranis’ restaurants under the name ‘Burger King’ in Camp and Koregaon Park.
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On this discovery, they immediately sent a cease and desist notice in June 2009 in an attempt to amicably settle the matter without resorting to legal proceedings. Iranis, however, sent a strongly worded reply defiantly insisting on using ‘Burger King’ for its restaurant and stating that the US-based fast-food giant’s restaurants did not exist in India when they set up shop in 1992 and, therefore, they cannot claim any common law rights. Later, a lawsuit was filed by Burger King Corporation.
The court acknowledged Iranis’ arguments and ruled in their favour.
