Brand name is an extremely vital component for any business, upon which seldom would any firm budge down. But what if the company using your name is Microsoft?
Azure Knowledge Corporation Pvt Ltd is a firm that has held firm against protecting its brand name, from one court to another. Azure registered the trademark rights over AZURE in 1998. However, the mark was being used by Microsoft over different products and services in India.
Azure filed a complaint at a Civil Court against the usage of its trademarks in Microsoft’s services such as ‘Azure’, ‘Microsoft Azure’, ‘Azure Cosmos DB’, ‘Azure Cloud for All’, ‘Azure Sphere’, ‘Azure Brain Wave’, etc. The complaint by Azure also includes the use of domain name Azure.Microsoft.com, by Microsoft.
Microsoft in reply stated that the name Azure has been in use by 2008 around the world, with the name being used in India since 2014. In the Civil Court trial, it couldn’t be proved that the similarity between the two names was detrimental to Azure. Rather, Azure Knowledge Corporation Pvt Ltd has been growing continuously, even after the use of the mark by the Defendant. The Civil Court thus dismissed the plea.
Dissatisfied with the outcome, Azure has now reached the gates of the High Court of Ahmedabad. The case is currently active and no decision has been given.
However, this does project an inspiring story as to how a very small company has been defending its brand against a software giant.
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