Supreme Court Declines To Entertain Western Digital Challenge Over Refurbished Hard Drive Sales

The Supreme Court on Tuesday, 27 May declined to interfere with the Delhi High Court ruling permitting the sale of refurbished hard disk drives bearing Western Digital's trademarks, holding that removal of the original marks before resale does not amount to trademark “use” under Section 29 of the Trade Marks Act.

A Bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan dismissed the Special Leave Petition challenging the Delhi High Court's 9 March 2026 judgment.

The dispute arose from hard disk drives (HDDs) originally manufactured by Western Digital and Seagate Technology and sold to equipment manufacturers abroad. After the drives reached end-of-life and their warranties expired, they were extracted from discarded computers, imported into India, and sold to refurbishers including Geonix, Daichi and Consistent Infosystems.

The refurbishers tested, reformatted and resold the drives under their own brands with fresh two-year warranties. Before the Delhi High Court, Western Digital argued that the refurbishers were committing trademark infringement, passing off and “reverse passing off”.

However, a Division Bench of the High Court comprising Justices C. Hari Shankar and Om Prakash Shukla rejected the contention. It held that since the refurbishers removed the original marks before sale, there was no “use” of a registered trademark capable of triggering infringement under Section 29 of the Trade Marks Act.

In a connected appeal involving respondent Hansraj Dugar, who imported branded HDDs directly without rebranding them, the High Court extended protection under the doctrine of international exhaustion. It found that the original purchases were lawful and that there was no evidence of impairment sufficient to justify restricting resale.

The Supreme Court declined to interfere with the High Court's appeal. It held:

“We are not inclined to interfere with the impugned order. The Special Leave Petition is hence dismissed.”

Accordingly, the High Court's decision remains undisturbed.