Azure Knowledge Corp sues MS for trademark infringement

Ahmedabad-based Information Technology (IT) company Azure Knowledge Corporation has sued software major Microsoft Corporation and its Indian arm Microsoft India for infringement of its trademark Azure.

The suit was filed last month in the city civil court in Ahmedabad, with judge DV Shah issuing notices to the defendants on February 10.

The matter will be taken up in the court on April 18.

Meanwhile, the company has also moved a petition in the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) seeking cancellation of the registration of Windows Azure, used by Microsoft for its products, Azure Knowledge Corporation said in a statement.

In its petition, the company said it has been using Azure as a trade name as well as its trademark for a variety of businesses since 1996, and has also registered the mark Azure under various classes.

It got its word mark and label mark registered in 1998 with its user date from 1996.

While Microsoft, on the other hand, introduced the mark Azure in India for the first time only in 2014, and has been selling its Cloud Services Platform under the name since then, the company said in its plea.

The company has sought the court's direction to not allow Microsoft to force a locally grown company to surrender its legal and statutory rights, saying it has spent a substantial amount in promotion and marketing of Azure mark and the logo over the years.

The suit seeks the court's direction to restrain Microsoft from using the mark Azure, Microsoft Azure, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Cloud For All, Azure Sphere, Azure Brain Wave, and other similar names, as well as the domain name azure.microsoft.com, and for the rendition of accounts of profit "illegally earned" by use of the trademark "Azure."