The Delhi High Court has restrained NIIT Ltd, an IT education and training firm, from using the expression “Turning Point” for a computer training programme on the plea of a coaching institute that it has the intellectual right over the term.

“The use of the expression ‘TURNING POINT’ along with their mark NIIT by the Defendant (NIIT Ltd) at this initial stage deserves to be injuncted as the mark of the Defendant is deceptively similar to that of the Plaintiff Institution (M/s Turning Point).

“As a result, the plaintiff’s application for the grant of interim injunction ... stands allowed and accordingly, the defendant, its directors, employees, servants, agents etc are restrained from marketing, selling or using in any manner whatsoever the plaintiff’s registered trademark ‘TURNING POINT’ with respect to its services till the final disposal of the present case,” Justice Kailash Gambhir said.

The court’s interim direction came on a civil suit filed by Keshav Kumar Aggarwal, sole proprietor of M/s TURNING POINT coaching institute located at Malviya Nagar here, seeking to restrain NIIT from using it for one of its computer training programmes.

It allowed the plea of H P Singh and Navroop Singh, lawyers for Aggarwal, who said the term ‘Turning Point’ was registered as the “trademark/label” of the coaching institute way back in 2005.

The suit was filed by Aggarwal after he came know in 2002 that NIIT has “launched a computer training programme under the name ‘NIIT THE TURNING POINT’”

Granting interim relief, the court, however, said, “It may be noted that nothing expressed herein shall be treated as an expression on the merits of the case.”

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