Case Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Guj) 190
Symphony Limited formerly Symphony Comfort Systems Ltd provides residential mobile commercial packaged and central air cooling solutions for domestic and industrial customers in 60 countries across the globe. It is the world’s largest manufacturer of residential commercial and industrial air coolers.
The suit was filed by Symphony Ltd. alleging infringement of the Designs Act by the Respondent company, alleging that the raj cooling system pvt ltd has been selling their product of air cooler having model name ALLWYN AC201 and ALLWYN AC203, whose is similar to Symphony’s design vide registration no. 288184
The Plaintiff sought that the Defendant party to calculate the amount of profit earned by them by the sale of such air coolers and thereby furnish this amount to the Plaintiffs along with 18% interest from the date of the suit till realisation. It was further sought that the Defendants destroy the moulds for the air coolers, along with the cooler frames, bodies, printing materials, blocks, dyes, stencils, stationery materials, and related apparatus which was used to infringe the products of the Plaintiff.
The Gujarat High Court then passed a consent decree in terms of a settlement arrived between renowned Symphony coolers and Raj Cooling System Pvt in connection with a suit for permanent injunction instituted under the Designs Act, 2000.
A Bench consisting Justice Bhargav Karia noted that during the pendency of the suit, the Plaintiff and the Defendants had arrived at a settlement and pursuant to the Application under Order 23 Rule 3 of CPC, the Plaintiff had placed the ‘Consent Terms’ on record.
1. The Defendant should not make any application for the registration of design which was similar or which may be pirated or an obvious imitation of the Plaintiff’s products.
2. The Defendant should surrender grants/licenses/permissions given by the Government
authority in relation to the air cooler or any other product which infringed the design of the Plaintiff’s products.
3. The Defendant should within 15 days of signing the Consent Terms surrender all infringing products, dyes, moulds, machines or any related apparatus which were used for infringing the registered design of the Plaintiff’s products.
4. The Defendant should also undertake to refrain from using identical air coolers which may have been imitated from the Plaintiff’s products.
5. The Defendant should be refrained from using any identical or deceptively/confusingly similar design which leads to obvious imitation of the registered/unregistered design of the Plaintiff
6. The Defendant should indemnify the Plaintiff against all costs, charges. Damages, claims, suits and expenses against the use of the infringed product
7. The Plaintiff, in return, agreed not to claim any damages, loss of profit from the current suit against the Defendant in consideration of the settlement terms
8. The parties to the suit must bear their own expenses and costs related to the suit
Accordingly, the proceedings which were held before the Controller of Design were withdrawn and the Defendant undertook not to challenge the Plaintiff registered design.
Keeping in view the settlement and the cancellation proceedings, the High Court concluded the dispute and deemed it to be settled. All parties were directed to abide by the Consent Terms.