Delhi High Court Dismisses Mahaveer Udyog's Appeal In Trademark Suit Over “Tiger” Mark

The Delhi High Court has dismissed an appeal filed by the proprietor of Mahaveer Udyog in a trademark dispute, refusing to interfere with the finding that the word “TIGER” is commonly used in the trade for agricultural implements and holding that the marks “TIGER GOLD BRAND” and “TIGER PREMIUM BRAND” are not deceptively similar and do not make out a case of passing off.

A Division Bench of Justice V. Kameswar Rao and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora upheld the January 9, 2026 order of the Single Judge. The court said the competing label marks must be examined as a whole and found no ground to interfere with the view that they are visually different and unlikely to cause confusion.

The appellant, a proprietorship firm engaged in manufacturing agricultural implements including harrow discs, claimed use of the label mark “TIGER GOLD BRAND” since May 6, 2010. The mark was registered in 2023. The respondent, Atulya Discs Pvt. Ltd., incorporated in 2020, applied in 2022 for registration of the label “TIGER PREMIUM BRAND” on a proposed-to-be-used basis.

After issuing a cease and desist notice in October 2024 and receiving a denial, the appellant filed a suit in April 2025 and sought an interim injunction. It argued that the marks were deceptively similar and likely to mislead consumers, especially farmers, into believing that the respondent's product was an extension of its brand.

Before the Division Bench, the appellant said it was the prior user. It argued that the words “GOLD” and “PREMIUM” only indicate quality and suggest a common source. It said consumers would recall the products by the word “TIGER” and may be confused. At the same time, it maintained that it was not claiming exclusivity over the words “TIGER” or “BRAND”.

Rejecting these submissions, the court said, “If this Court was to accept the aforesaid submissions on deceptive similarity of the Appellant, we would have to necessarily hold that, the Appellant herein has exclusivity in the wordmark 'TIGER' 'BRAND' for these agricultural goods, which would be contrary to the admission of the Appellant that it does not have any exclusive right to the words 'TIGER' 'BRAND'.”

The court also noted that the appellant did not have a separate word mark registration for “TIGER”, “BRAND”, or “TIGER GOLD BRAND”. It said the comparison had to be made between the two labels as a whole. It also recorded that the appellant had itself accepted that the two labels are visually different.

Agreeing with the Single Judge, the Bench held that the word “TIGER” is commonly used in the trade for such goods and that the appellant failed to show that the mark had become uniquely associated with its goods.

On passing off, the court examined the appellant's advertisement expenses and sales figures. It found that these did not show sufficient goodwill to establish that consumers would associate the mark only with the appellant or that there was any misrepresentation.

The court said, “In these facts, we are not inclined to interfere with the finding of the learned Single Judge that the mark TIGER has not attained distinctiveness qua the goods of the Appellant. We are of the view that the learned Single Judge has applied the correct principles and there is no error whatsoever in the findings holding that no case of passing off is made out, which led to the dismissal of the injunction application.”

Finding no error in the impugned order, the court dismissed the appeal.

For Appellant: Advocates R P Yadav, Riju Mani Talukdar, and Divyanshu Yadav