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Issue notice to defendants by all modes including dasti, returnable for 22nd February, 2019 before the Joint Registrar.

It is pertinent to mention that the present suit has been filed for declaration of well known trademark, permanent injunction restraining infringement of trademarks, passing off, dilution, damages, rendition of accounts, delivery up etc. In the plaint it is stated that plaintiff no. 1 is an intellectual property holding company and the proprietor of numerous trademark registrations consisting of the arbitrary and fanciful mark VERIZON. The said mark was adopted by the plaintiff no. 1 in 2000 and since March 2000 the plaintiffs have used the said trademark extensively and continuously in an uninterrupted manner in India. Plaintiff no. 1 is a part of the VERIZON group of companies which has granted an exclusive licence to plaintiff no. 2 for the use of trademark VERIZON and the VERIZON logos in connection with various products and services, including communications, real estate, development and construction services. Plaintiff no. 2 has further granted a sub-licence to plaintiff no. 3, plaintiff no.4 and plaintiff no.5.

It is further stated in the plaint that the plaintiffs are also the proprietors of several domain names comprising of the VERIZON trade marks including www.verizon.com, www.verizonenterprise.com, www.verizonwireless.com, verizon.in and verizonenterprise.in.

It is the plaintiff‟s case that the trademark VERIZON and the VERIZON logos have acquired a well known status which has been protected by this Court in various cases. It is stated that in Financial Year 2017 the annual revenue generated by the plaintiffs from its business under the mark VERIZON was US$ 126 billion and incurred expenses of US$ 2.64 billion towards promotion and advertisement. Learned counsel for the plaintiffs states that in July, 2018, the plaintiffs‟, while conducting routine market surveillance, came across the advertisement and promotional presence of the defendants‟ goods and services under the VARYZON/VARYZON TECH mark and logos. She states that the plaintiffs‟ were made aware of the commercial operations of the defendants with the use of logo and , VARYZON TECH, the domain name www.varyzon.com along with the email id [email protected], all which are deceptively similar and phonetically identical to the plaintiffs‟ VERIZON trademarks. Learned counsel for the plaintiffs‟ states that in order to ascertain better particulars of the commercial expanse and outreach of the defendants‟, the plaintiffs‟ conducted an investigation into the activities of the defendants in and around the month of July, 2018. She states that the plaintiffs‟ representative visited the location of the defendant no.2 and met with defendant no.1, who introduced himself as the owner and sole proprietor of defendant no.2. She states that the defendant no.1 informed the plaintiffs‟ representative that the defendants are engaged in wholesale and trading business of CCTV Camera, Power Battery, Power UPS, Desktops, Laptops etc. He states that the defendant no.1 also informed the plaintiffs‟ representative that they are involved in providing various services in the range of website design and development and mobile applications and design development. She states that the defendant no.1 further informed the plaintiffs‟ representative that though they do not manufacture any products, but are involved in dealing and selling these products making use of logo and , the word mark VARYZON TECH and the domain name www.varyzon.com.

Learned counsel for the plaintiffs states that the defendants‟ mark VARYZON is structurally, phonetically and visually similar to the plaintiffs‟ mark VERIZON the use of the impugned VARYZON marks by the defendants along with making use of the logos and , VARYZON TECH, the domain name www.varyzon.com and the existence of the mail id [email protected] for overlapping and highly related goods and services is bound to create confusion in the minds of the consumers that the defendants have a direct nexus or affiliation with the plaintiffs.

Consequently, till further orders, this Court restrains the defendants their partners or proprietors, principal officers, servants, agents, distributors and all others acting on their behalf as the case may be from manufacturing, marketing, selling, offering, or making for sale, providing goods and/or services related to products in the field of technology, security systems, security solutions, surveillance cameras, hardware products, UPS Systems, Desktop machines, services related website development, website designing, web application development, mobile application development, cloud and big data technology, domain name registration and web hosting, automation tools, business and technology consulting etc under the corporate/trading name M/S VARYZON TECH along with the marks VARYZON TECH, VARYZON, the logos and , the domain name www.varyzon.com and the email id [email protected], or any other trademark and name which is either identical with or consists of designation deceptively similar to the plaintiffs' trademarks VERIZON and logos.