Delhi High Court Grants Interim Injunction Preventing Bhopal Publisher From Using “The Pioneer” Trademark

The Delhi High Court on 1 April, granted an ex-parte, ad-interim injunction in favour of MS CMYK Printech Limited and restrained Ideal Multi Media Network from unauthorised use of the trademark and copyrighted material of the newspaper “The Pioneer”.

Justice Tushar Rao Gedela held that a comparison of the plaintiff's and defendant's publications indicated deliberate copying, imitation, and publication of Pioneer's content by the defendant. He noted:

“...the usage of the trademark 'The Pioneer' and the label along with the copyrightable news reports and other material published by the plaintiff in its newspaper by the defendants appear to tantamount to unauthorized and illegal adoption and infringement of not only the trademarks but also the copyrights of the plaintiff.”

MS CMYK Printech, the registered proprietor of “The Pioneer” (established in 1865), informed the Court that it had authorised Ideal Multi Media Network to publish the Bhopal Edition under a 2004 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

This was revoked on 17 February 2026 following a demand for outstanding royalties totaling Rs. 1,81,39,787. Despite the termination, the defendant continued to publish identical news reports and layouts, infringing the plaintiff's literary works and trademark rights.

On evaluating the records and a comparative table of the newspapers, the Court found that the plaintiff had established a prima facie strong case. The Bench noted that the curation of a newspaper—covering selection of newsworthy events, column widths, headline styles, and visual content—constitutes copyrightable material.

The Bench further observed that the defendant was exploiting the plaintiff's goodwill and potentially misleading the public into believing its local news was authenticated by the plaintiff. Consequently, the Court held that the balance of convenience favored the plaintiff, who would otherwise suffer irreparable harm.

Therefore, the Court directed the defendant and its agents to refrain from “reproducing, copying, downloading, extracting, publishing, printing, distributing” or otherwise exploiting the copyrighted content, articles, or design of “The Pioneer”.

It further prohibited the defendant from representing itself as a licensee or franchisee of the mark, or from soliciting advertisements or collecting revenue using the plaintiff's branding.

Justice Gedela clarified that these directions were issued as urgent interim relief and simultaneously issued summons to the defendant to file its written statement within 30 days.