Pune Eatery Wins 13-Year Legal Battle Against US Burger King Chain

A Pune commercial court has ruled in favour of local eatery Burger King—an excellent and extremely well-known entity at Camp, one of the most popular areas of the city—after its 13-year-long legal fight with US-based multinational fast-food chain Burger King Corporation. District Judge Sunil Vedpathak was the presiding judge when the judgment was pronounced on 16 August. It dismissed a plea of the global giant for permanent injunction.

Way in 2008, the American burger giant had registered the suit against the Pune-based Burger King for infringement, passing off and damages for use of the business name and trademark. Hon’ble Judge Vedpathak said the Pune-based restaurant run by Anahita and Shapoor Irani had prima facie proved bona fide use of the name much prior to the arrival of the American company in the Indian market.

The court accepted that the Burger King serving in Pune had been using the name since 1992-1993, much before the registration of trademark by Burger King Corporation in India. Referring to his judgment, Judge Vedpathak said that the US-based fast food chain did not use the trademark in India for almost 30 years and by then the local business was continuing to render services under the same name.

It was one of the MNC that had entered the market in India in the year 2014 and opened its outlets in different big cities of the country like Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune. The cause of action for the lawsuit emerged in 2008, when the petitioners’ firm came to know about the trademark application of the Iranis for BURGER KING and continued to use the name. The owners of the Pune restaurant received a cease-and-desist letter from the company, and they responded to it in 2009 asserting with an absolute right to continued use of the name.