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Showing contexts for: transborder in Smithkline Beecham Plc. & Anr. vs Sunil Sarmalkar & Ors. on 5 October, 2012Matching Fragments
12. I therefore hold that the plaintiffs have miserably failed to prove their case either with respect to infringement or passing off with respect to the trade mark PANAMAX.
13. So far as the trade mark PARAMAX is concerned, admittedly, the suit is only a suit for passing off and not for infringement, inasmuch as, so far as India is concerned, neither of the plaintiffs has any registration of the said trade mark PARAMAX in India. The plaintiffs only have set up a case of transborder reputation on the basis of sale of the paracetamol tablets under the trade mark PARAMAX in countries abroad such as U.K., New Zealand, Bangladesh. Once again, a mere self-serving averment is not discharge of onus of proof. A self-serving statement in an affidavit by way of evidence cannot be the discharge of proof with respect to a vital issue of transborder reputation. Transborder reputation or spill over reputation has two elements, one of actual sales abroad prior to the use of the trade mark by the defendants and secondly of the fact that there is a spill over reputation of such marks in India. Both these aspects have to be established to the satisfaction of the Court. This surely could have been very easily established by the plaintiffs by filing the documents of the sales abroad, and to show how knowledge of the sales of the paracetamol tablets under the trade mark PARAMAX also exists in India. The plaintiffs having failed to file any documents whatsoever, the plaintiffs have failed to discharge their onus of proof.