Delhi High Court restrains firm from manufacturing or selling musical keyboards with ‘deceptively similar’ design to Casio

The high court perused through photographs and physical keyboards belonging to the plaintiff and defendant. It held, “At a bare glance, it is clear that the plaintiff’s and the defendants’ (Riddhi Siddhi) keyboards are deceptively similar in design. The various similarities between the two, highlighted paras 12, 14 and 15 supra, as alleged in the plaint, actually stand borne out even from a viewing of the physical samples of the two keyboards.”

Justice Shankar observed that the design of Riddhi Siddhi’s keyboard was an “obvious imitation” of Casio’s design, under the provisions of the Designs Act.

The defendant’s counsel argued that Casio’s keyboard design was not new or original. The defendants relied on listings on the internet pertaining to similar keyboards on various e-commerce websites to advance their “lack of novelty” argument.

Casio argued that Riddhi Siddhi was selling its musical keyboards with the registered trademark Blueberry under the brand name Nexus 32 by adopting a near identical design for its keyboard, emphasising that even the features of the two keyboards were the same.

“The plaint asserts that the suit design has become indelibly associated with the plaintiff and has, over a period of time, acquired secondary significance. The purchasing public, it is submitted, invariably associates the suit design with the plaintiff’s keyboard,” the order recorded.

Casio argued that its keyboard design was new, novel and original and that the “defendants’ case has no legs to stand on”.

The high court also observed that it was for Riddhi Siddhi to produce material before the court to indicate that, as on the date when Casio’s design was registered, it was not new or original.

The high court observed, “No such material is forthcoming on the record. To a query from the court in this regard, Mr Arnav Goel (Riddhi Siddhi’s lawyer) has merely drawn attention to the following screenshot, at page 97 of the documents filed by the defendants. A bare glance at the aforesaid screenshot reveals that it puts up a keyboard for sale on the website made-in-china.com. The printout was taken on 10th August 2022. Mr Arnav Goel seeks to submit that the words “since 2008”, figuring in red towards the top of the screenshot, would indicate that the keyboard was available in the market since 2008, i.e. prior to the date of grant of registration to the suit design.”

The court noted that no inference could be drawn from the term “since 2008” to indicate that the keyboard shown in the said screenshot was available for sale before 2008.