According to Indian Express and others, the previous day, the Delhi High Court ordered Amazon to pay $39 million in damages to “Beverly Hills Polo Club” (BHPC) trademark owner Lifestyle Equity.
In 2020, Lifestyle Equity found on Amazon’s Indian shopping website that clothes with the same logo as its brand BHPC were sold for much less than their own clothes.
Upon checking, these clothes were self-branded products from Amazon subsidiary Amazon Technologies.
In response, Lifestyle Equity filed a lawsuit against Amazon in an Indian court, accusing it of trademark infringement.
The court found that the logo used by Amazon was almost indistinguishable from the BHPC logo and that Amazon infringed on it while well aware of its exclusive rights to the BHPC logo.
Aditya Gupta, an attorney at Indian law firm Ira Law, said it was “the highest case of trademark infringement litigation in India” and called it a landmark ruling in relation to trademark infringement litigation against U.S. companies.
In 2021, Reuters reported that based on Amazon’s internal documents, Amazon made moves such as creating knockoffs and manipulating search results to strengthen its own brand in India.
SALLY LEE
US ASIA JOURNAL
