Delhi High Court has restrained the Institute of Cost Accountants of India from using the ICAI acronym for the Institution or for the services provided by it. The HC order came after the final hearing of a civil suit filed by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), which claimed use of ICAI acronym was infringement of its Trademark.
According to a Live Law report, Justice C Hari Shankar in the order issued on March 21, directed the Institute of Cost Accountants of India to remove the ICAI abbreviation from all current web pages and online platforms as well as other physical or virtual representations in which the acronym is used, within a span of three months.
During the hearing, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India submitted that the trademark ICAI has been registered by the Institute since March 25, 2011, under class 41 which pertains to ‘Education and Providing of Training’. But, they have been using the mark since 1949. The Institute also claimed that the defendants were earlier functioning as the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India and is involved in the same activity except that it is concerned with cost accountants.
“The High Court has observed that there is a clear prima facie case of infringement by the usage of ‘ICAI’ acronym by the Institute of Cost Accountants of India and the facts of the case clearly fall under Section 29(2)(c) read with Section 29(3) of the Trademarks Act, 1999, involving infringement of registered Trademark,” the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India said in statement on March 28.
The Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India was renamed as the Institute of Cost Accountants of India only in 2012.
The Institute of Cost Accountants and the Institute of Chartered Accountants are two apex autonomous accountancy bodies in the country under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Both the institutes impart training and education to cost accountants and chartered accountants, respectively.
The work of the cost accountants differs from that of a chartered accountant in the form that they focus mainly on the cost aspects of a business like cost management, financial reporting and organisational management.
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