Setting aside the Registrar’s Rejection of IOC’s “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together” Trade Mark, the Bombay High Court has asserted that a quasi-judicial order rejecting a trade mark application, without indicating how the material on record was considered, without assigning any weightage to the applicant’s submissions and evidence, and without articulating reasons for rejecting the applicant’s responses to examination report objections, is arbitrary, suffers from non-application of mind, and is liable to be quashed.
A Single Judge Bench of Justice Somasekhar Sundaresan observed that the Impugned Order is unsustainable on its face, suffering from an evident lack of reasons and a complete non-application of mind. The Registrar claimed to have considered the material on record but failed to indicate how such consideration was undertaken or what weightage was assigned to the Petitioner’s submissions and evidence.
The Impugned Order stated that the application was filed on a “proposed to be used” basis without any relevant documents to establish the trade mark, and that no corroborative evidence had been presented. The Court found this observation to be inaccurate, noting that the Petitioner’s governing body had indeed passed a resolution adopting the English words “Faster, Higher, Stronger-Together”, that the mark had been adopted and protection sought worldwide, and that registrations of the mark in various countries had been placed before the Registrar, none of which was considered.
The Petitioner had submitted extensive material exceeding 250 pages, including case law, legal propositions, factual evidence of use, international registrations, written submissions dated 10th October 2022, additional documents filed for the hearing on 26th September 2023, and additional written submissions dated 1st August 2024. However, the Court found that the Impugned Order merely stated that the objections in the examination report “cannot be waived” without any articulation as to why the Petitioner’s submissions addressing those objections were unworthy of acceptance.
Briefly, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) sought registration of the trade mark “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together”, being an English translation and extension of the well-known Olympic motto “Citius, Altius, Fortius”. The application was filed on a “proposed to be used” basis. The Registrar of Trade Marks rejected the application, and the IOC filed a Commercial Miscellaneous Petition before the Bombay High Court impugning that rejection.
