Adidas, a German sportswear brand said it did not launch any face mask in India. But however, masks are being sold bearing the company’s logos online. Swiggy, an online food delivery app said it is going to supply Swiggy branded masks that are to be used by its delivery partners in selected cities.
Starting from simple plain masks to fight against Covid-19 pandemic, it has undergone massive changes over the months to masks with different designs on them to match with their outfits.
Now masks are sold at a large scale with unauthorized use of trademarks and logos of companies like Nike, Swiggy, Amul, Adidas, Under Armor and various famous characters from Marvel and Disney along with other registered trademarks infringing on their intellectual properties said many firms.
Some companies are taking it very seriously. Tommy Hilfiger filed cases in Delhi High Court against two manufacturers in Tamil Nadu for printing company’s brand name and logos on the masks and US fashion brand received an ad-interim injunction from the Delhi court on June 9th. Tommy Hilfiger refused to comment on the case.
According to the court documents, Tommy was seeking a permanent injunction against the defendants from infringing their trademark ‘ Tommy Hilfiger’ with its variations and flag logo i.e. ‘Tommy’, ‘Tommy Hilfiger’, ‘Tommy Sport’
Manish Sapra, senior marketing director for Adidas India said, “ Counterfeiting is a major issue faced by retail brands and this affects the complete value chain for customers looking for high quality products from reputed brands like Adidas.”
Swiggy– online food delivery company said it is going to enlist vendors for supplying Swiggy branded masks to be used by its delivery partners in selected cities. A Swiggy spokesperson said any unauthorized production of its brand or logo is considered as trademark infringement and appropriate actions will be taken against such acts.
A Haryana based bed sheet manufacturing company started sourcing masks bearing logos of Nike, Adidas and Under Armour and selling these online for Rs 15 each. The co-owner of Haryana firm said these are all duplicate items . As lockdown has hit their bed sheet business they had to produce these masks.
Some companies are ignorant of misuse of their trademarks for the time being and if they go out of hand, they would move legally against them.
