In the matter of Wow Momo Foods Private Limited (Plaintiff) v Wow Punjabi (Defendant) (CS(COMM) 253/2024), the Delhi High Court, vide its order dated 22 March 2024, held that “this Court is satisfied that plaintiff has made out a prima facie case for grant of an ex parte ad interim injunction till the next date of hearing. Balance of convenience lies in favour of plaintiff and plaintiff is likely to suffer irreparable harm in case the injunction, as prayed for, is not granted.”
The present case was filed seeking permanent injunction restraining infringement of trademark, passing off, unfair trade practice, rendition of accounts, and damages against the Defendant who was running a restaurant/outlet under the trademark “WOW”/ “WOW PUNJABI”/.
The Defendant’s failure to reply to the cease-and-desist notice asking the Defendant to restrain themselves from using the trademark “WOW”/ “WOW PUNJABI”, or any other trademark deceptively similar to the Plaintiff’s trademark and follow-up legal notice sent by the Plaintiff resulted in the filing of the present suit.
The Plaintiff contended that the Defendant had adopted the essential and dominant feature of the Plaintiff’s trademark “WOW”, and the trade dress adopted was also identical with a yellow background, font style, and the letter “O” filled with red colour.
Further, the Plaintiff’s claimed that they are the registered proprietor of the trademarks “WOW”/ “WOW! MOMO”/ (“Plaintiff’s trademark”) and had coined and adopted the trademark “WOW!”/ “WOW! MOMO” in the year 2008 for providing products and services in the food industry.
It is pertinent to note that the Plaintiff’s house mark is “WOW!”, which forms the essential and significant feature of all the trademarks of Plaintiff. Also, Plaintiff registered the domain name/ website ‘www.wowmomo.com’ in its favour since July 2013.
The Plaintiff’s further claimed that they have over 600 outlets across 30 plus cities and a brand valuation of about INR1,225 crores in the year 2021 and has grown more than 60% in the year 2022.
The Court was satisfied that Plaintiff has made out a prima facie case for the grant of an ex parte ad interim injunction till the next date of hearing Defendant and accordingly, the Defendant, and all others acting for and, on their behalf, are restrained from using, advertising, directly or indirectly dealing in any goods or services under Defendant’s trademark “WOW”/ “WOW PUNJABI”/ or any other trademark which is identical or deceptively similar to Plaintiff’s registered trademark “WOW”/ “WOW!MOMO”/.
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