EXCITEL PRIVATE LIMITED v. REGISTRAR OF TRADEMARKS

Recently, Excitel Private Limited (“Appellant”) filed an appeal before the IP Division of the Delhi High Court against an order passed by the Registrar of Trade Marks refusing its application, for the mark REELTIME, in Class 42. One of the grounds for refusal was that the Appellant had only submitted Internet extracts to show use of its mark in India. The Registry’s stand was that such extracts are only “secondary evidence” and cannot be relied on solely to show use in India. The court opined that rejecting extracts from websites on the ground that they are not “primary evidence” is an incorrect approach since the genuineness of these extracts can be checked by the Registrar by accessing the websites at the time of hearing. If, despite this verification, however, the Registrar has doubts regarding the evidence, he/she can, at best, ask the applicant to support such evidence with an affidavit under the Information Technology law of the country, which allows reliance on website printouts. Accordingly, the court set aside the refusal order passed by the Registrar and allowed the application to be published in three months. EXCITEL PRIVATE LIMITED v. REGISTRAR OF TRADEMARKS, C.A.(COMM.IPD-TM) 5/2021, Decision dated July 18, 2022