On 25 February 2025, the Delhi High Court issued a permanent injunction, restraining Amazon Technologies Inc (Amazon) from infringing the trademark “Beverly Hills Polo Club” (BHPC) owned by Lifestyle Equities CV and Lifestyle Licensing BV (together Lifestyle) and awarded damages to Lifestyle.

The Court observed that the multi-layered nature of e-commerce made it difficult to identify, attribute liability, and effectively enforce intellectual property rights, necessitating clear legal frameworks to address the evolving challenges posed by online trademark infringement.

For the first time in India, the Court evolved the concept of “e-infringement”, as a species of infringement on e-commerce platforms. The Court observed that in an e-infringement there can be multiple parties involved, i.e. (i) the owner of the infringing brand which is being used on the product, (ii) the retailer or seller of the infringing product, (iii) the e-commerce platform which is enabling the retailer to sell the infringing product or an aggregator who may be collecting similar products and making them available for sale, (iv) the party which is warehousing, raising invoices, packaging, delivering and receiving payments for the infringing product, (v) the supplier of the infringing product, and (vi) the brand which is being used on the infringing product.

The Court held that on an e-commerce platform, the customer tends to order a product by merely looking at the image rather than the actual product. The customer does not feel the product or its quality, and goes by the prominence of a logo. In the present case, the Court found that the logo on the infringing products was almost identical to Lifestyle’s BHPC logo.

Lifestyle also made a claim for compensatory damages, calculated on the basis of the trademark license agreement executed by Lifestyle with its licensees, as well as a claim for exemplary and punitive damages in light of the wilful nature of the infringement.

The Court in addition to issuing a permanent injunction against Amazon, awarded compensatory damages to Lifestyle (towards lost royalties, increased advertising and promotional expenses) amounting to USD 38.78 million, along with costs.

Gaurav Pachnanda SA appeared, along with Avni Sharma, for Lifestyle, instructed by Mohit Goel and Sidhant Goel, attorneys from Sim and San.

The judgment can be accessed here.