The Hindu : Business : Infosys to contest in apex court

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 17, 2004

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Business

Infosys to contest in apex court

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, SEPT. 16. Infosys Technologies, the Bangalore headquartered information technology bellwether, on Wednesday found its name was not its own after the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), Chennai, agreed with a petitioner that the name `Infosys' could not belong exclusively to the firm.

N. R. Narayana Murthy, the firm's Chairman and chief mentor, said Infosys would "fight it out," by appealing to the Supreme Court, to preserve what had become an international brand with top-of-the-mind recall when it came to Indian IT industry.

Mr. Murthy said there was "no problem" and that the company would not make further public statements ahead of the upcoming quarterly results, in October. V. Balakrishnan, company secretary at Infosys Technologies, said the firm would file a special leave petition in the Supreme Court, seeking a stay of the IPAB ruling. Mr. Balakrishnan said the ruling would "not have an impact" on the firm.

The problem however was that Infosys' right to its name was not as undisputed as the company would have wanted it to be. The firm's attempt to prevent Jupiter Infosys, a company selling computer hardware in Kolkata, from using the name `Infosys' three years ago, backfired.

Jupiter Infosys claimed Infosys' own trademark registration numbers were not valid as the company was only using the name to sell a `service,' whereas trademark protection was only for physical goods under the Trademark and Merchandise Act 1958.

The Chennai bench of the appellate board upheld an application by Jupiter Infosys for cancellation of the registration of the trademark `Infosys' held by the IT services firm, and directed the Registrar of Trade Marks, Chennai, to remove the registration of the trademark `Infosys.'

Background

The IPAB, comprising Justice S. Jagadeesan (Chairman) and Raghbir Singh (Vice-Chairman), found that Infosys Technologies had "failed to make out its case that it had been in manufacturing or trading of goods for which it had taken the registration numbers."

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