Court orders FIR over duplicate Hewlett Packard products

A court here has ordered Delhi Police to lodge a complaint on the sale of duplicate products of American company Hewlett Packard in Nehru Place, known to be the biggest Indian market for information technology goods.

The order by Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Veena Rani came after a complaint was filed by California-based Hewlett Packard, seeking to lodge a case against unknown people for illegally selling products identical to those of the company.

"I, therefore, direct the station house officer (SHO) Kalkaji to register an FIR and conduct the investigation in the matter with the help of the complainants," the court said in the order delivered Friday which was made available to the media Wednesday.

The company told the court it was the registered proprietor of the trademark Hewlett Packard and also of the HP logo with respect of computers, hardware, software, computer peripherals, computer and communications networking, data processing and data storage, printers, imaging hardware, scanner, photocopier etc.

The company said it came to know in the second week of August that some unknown people and firms were manufacturing and selling identical spurious toner cartridges and printing inks under the HP logo and Hewlett Packard trademark in Nehru Place area of south Delhi.

It said the illegal material on sale was not manufactured and sold by the company as the said goods were of spurious quality.

The court noted that identical products were using the name and address of the complainant company.

The accused people were infringing and abetting the infringement of the trademark and "all the illegal activities are being committed by the accused solely with a view to trade upon the goodwill and reputation" of the company and "to earn profits in an illegal manner", the company said.

It requested the court to lodge a police complaint under various sections dealing with cheating and provisions of the Trade Marks Act and Copyright Act.

The court observed that the illegal sale of HP products was causing severe loss to the company both in terms of money as well as in terms of reputation.