Asus ZenFone, the Taiwanese brand of smartphones and other devices has run into legal trouble in India. The Delhi High Court has handed down an order restraining the firm from selling their smartphones and other devices using the brands ZEN or ZENFONE etc.
The ruling came in a case filed by an Indian company, Telecare Network India Pvt Ltd which claims it has been selling its products since 2008 and has registered its brands ZEN and ZENMOBILE under the Trade Marks Act and it also sells feature phones, smartphones, tablets and accessories under these brand names. Asus Technology Pvt Ltd is therefore in violation of the Act in selling similar products under the brand name Asus ZenFone. The company’s lawyers argued that the use of a similar sounding brand name creates confusion among the customers and the Taiwanese company must be asked to stop selling their products.
The single judge bench consisted of Justice Manmohan, who agreed with the case made out by the Indian company and has placed a restraint order on Asus from selling their products in the ZenFone brand names.
Asus’ legal team tried to put up a stout defence, including a submission that ZEN is more of a generic team and cannot be appropriated by the Indian company. The judge didn’t buy this argument saying that while Zen may be a generic term, it cannot be applied to a product like mobile phones where the trade name registration will have to be applied. Even otherwise, the fact that the Indian company has been in the market since 1998 and Asus entered only in 2014, goes against the Taiwanese company under the trade mark regulations.
The ruling by the Delhi High Court definitely comes at a very critical moment for Asus since some of their smartphones have been doing very well against the market leader Xiaomi. Models like ZenFone Max Pro M1, ZenFone Max Pro M2 and ZenFone Max M2 had been clocking impressive sales figures and all that could now be at the risk of running aground.
The company has meanwhile sent a communication to its stakeholders that its legal team is working with the court to resolve the issue.