CHENNAI: Iconic saree retailer Nalli Chinnasami Chetty has initiated legal action against leading e-commerce giant Snapdeal.com for ‘dishonestly’ using their trademark and brand on the site.
A statement from Nalli here on Wednesday said that they had issued a Cease & Desist Notice to Snapdeal.com on June 11 in using trademark and photographs of their product in any manner.
This was a clear case of copyright and trademark infringement, said a Nalli spokesperson.
According to him, not only was Snapdeal using the Nalli trademark as a search word an act of property infringement, the sarees on display were also claimed to be Nalli silk sarees.
“That is completely untrue and leads buyers to think they originated from Nalli,” he said.
Nalli’s statement also listed all such links and how it had noticed the infringement. “Nalli Chinnasami Chetty are the registered owners of the trademark “Nalli” in Class 24, 25 and various other goods falling within the ambit of classes 14, 9 and services under classes 35,36,37 41 & 42. “On Friday, June 11, 2015 we noticed while undertaking a Google search for “nalli.com” that Snapdeal had misused our registered trademark “Nalli”, as well as copied the photographic images from Nalli’s website,” it said. The weblinks which misused the brand name, included in the statement, led to Snapdeal’s clothing segment, said Nalli.
“More specifically, it leads to the online sale of silk sarees where Nalli products and images from our website nalli.com have been dishonestly used.
It is a deliberate attempt by Snapdeal to deceive the public to unjustly enrich itself to make the public assume that the original “Nalli” silk sarees are available on their website,” said the statement, adding that the online sale of Nalli products are done exclusively through their website “nalli.com” and nowhere else. “Hence, we have demanded that Snapdeal immediately cease & desist using their trademark Nalli as search criteria or in any other manner and to remove all photographic images of their products from Snapdeal’s website,” said a Nalli spokesperson.
A Snapdeal spokesperson, however, said that while they were taking appropriate action, “Snapdeal.com is an online marketplace which connects buyers and sellers to provide the widest assortment of products. We have received the notice from the company and will take appropriate actions as per law.”