Lexis Nexis In Indian Courts Over Local Law Firm Name

This is the first that we’ve seen of this .. it appears that LN in India are not being backward in coming foward to protect their trademark via the Indian judicial system..

The Indian Economic Times has reported LN have received an interim relief from the Delhi High Court, which restrained a Mumbai-based law firm from operating under the name Lex Nexus. The law firm was earlier known as Hathi & Partners.

You’ll see from the link above that online at least they are still operating under the name Lex Nexus and when we searched Hathi & Partners the page results automatically re-direct to the Lex Nexus url

Here’s the story in full

NEW DELHI: It’s a case of a law firm finding itself at the receiving end of a trademark battle. Reed Elsevier Properties (REP), a US-based

publishing house that owns and controls content provider LexisNexis, has received an interim relief from the Delhi High Court, which restrained a Mumbai-based law firm from operating under the name Lex Nexus. The law firm was earlier known as Hathi & Partners.

Observing the striking similarity between the two trademarks, the Delhi High Court gave an ex-parte injunction against the law firm for infringing the trademark LexisNexis of the US-based REP, Rahul Chaudhry, partner at law firm LLS partner, representing LexisNexis, told ET.

LexisNexis primarily provides legal content and online work flow solutions in science, medical, risk information and analytics, and business sectors. It employs around 18,000 people across the world and operates from over 200 locations. It has about 50 million internet users globally.

“The argument went in favour of REP as the court noted that its trademark is well known and closely connected with the legal field and that the publications, online databases and other services provided under the trademark are very highly regarded,” Mr Chaudhry said. An e-mail sent to Lex Nexus managing partner Shrikant Hathi did not elicit any response.

REP argued that LexisNexis was incorporated in the early 1970’s, much before the law firm came into existence in 1998. When the law firm started as a partnership in Mumbai, it was known as Hathi & Partners. It changed the name to Lex Nexus only in 2002-03, but again went to its original name for two years in 2004-05 after REP raised objections. However, it has been using the name again for the past one year.

REP contended that the law firm continued to use the infringing trademark even after it raised objections and sent a final notice to them in 2008.

Lex Nexus’ primary work areas include shipping litigation, arbitration, shipping projects and transactional work involving corporate, commercial and other activities pertaining to the shipping industry. It has offices in Mumbai and Delhi and around eight partners

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News-by-Industry/LexisNexis-gets-relief-in-trademark-case/articleshow/4452815.cms