The Delhi High Court has given summons against Chinese retailer Club Factory in a suit by luxury fashion company Louis Vuitton Malletier seeking to ban the selling of any merchandise on the websites of the former with the latter’s logo/trademark. (Louis Vuitton Malletier vs Future Tech India Pvt Ltd)

A single Judge Bench of Justice V Kameswar Rao has given the owner of Club Factory, Futuretimes Technology a maximum of 30 days to file his written statement in the suit.

The Club Factory app is one of 59 Chinese apps banned by the Government of India on the grounds that the apps are engaged in activities that are detrimental to India 's sovereignty and integrity, defense of India, state security and public order.

Louis Vuitton also prayed for the issuance of a temporary injunction prohibiting Club Factory or its owners, agents, distributors, etc. from the importation, manufacture, warehousing, distribution and/or offer for sale or advertisement, directly or indirectly, of any products, including facemasks, bearing the registered trademarks of Louis Vuitton.

Such trademarks include "LOUIS VUITTON," "LV" logo, Toile monogram pattern, Damier pattern and/or LV Flower pattern, or any similar trademark that could constitute trademark infringement.

It is prayed that the selling of these infringing goods on all Club Factory sites, including the www.clubfactory.com website, mobile applications, and social media networks, will be barred. 

Louis Vuitton has also pursued a way to suspend immediately the weblinks which advertise and/or offer the infringing products for sale.

Counsel for Club Factory stated that when the retailer is notified of the URL on which the infringing products are hosted, the retailer itself shall remove the links to the infringing products in accordance with the information technology law policy.

In the request for interim relief in the matter, the Court issued notice and ordered Club Factory to file its reply within two weeks.

The matter is expected to be heard next 13th August 2020. 

The lawyers Dhruv Anand, Udita Patro, Kavya Mammen, Sampurnaa Sanyal represented Louis Vuitton. 

Senior Advocate C.M. Lall represented Club Factory with Advocates Ankur Sangal, Ajay Bhargava, Atul Pandey, Aseem Chaturvedi, Sucheta Roy, Shiva Tokas.

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