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Informist, Thursday, Mar. 12, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – The Delhi High Court Thursday rejected Volkswagen AG's plea against the Registrar of Trademarks's 2023 order to register Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.'s 'transformation' trademark. Volkswagen AG had argued that Maruti Suzuki's 'transformation' trademark was similar to its '4Motion' mark. 

 

On a comparison of Volkswagen's mark with Maruti Suzuki's whole trademark, the court is satisfied that from a visual overlook, there is no plausible chance of confusion between the two rival marks because they are different from one another, said Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora. Volkswagen's mark is used in relation to its existing technology applied to the vehicle, so as to denote a feature of its vehicle, Volkswagen Tiguan, Maruti Suzuki has used the mark as a part of an advertising campaign to convey a transition in its use of technology, said the court.

 

Maruti Suzuki's mark starts with alphabets while Volkswagen's mark starts with a numerical '4', which is a stark difference between the two marks, said the court. The prefix 'trans' in Maruti Suzuki's mark when compared with the prefix '4' in Volkswagen's mark, leads to distinct pronunciation which does not lead to any likelihood of confusion in the said marks, said the court. 

 

Maruti Suzuki's mark brings the thought of transformation to one's mind and its submission that it is a wordplay of the dictionary word transformation to convey to its consumer the transition of technology from analogue to digital, for its vehicles, appears reasonable, said the court. Both companies have independent, substantial goodwill in the Indian market, said the court. Considering the class of products sold by the parties are cars, which are purchased by consumers after due deliberations, there is no material on record to conclude that the consumers would be confused or misled to purchase the goods of Maruti Suzuki under mistaken belief that the same actually belongs to Volkswagen, said the court.

 

The case has its genesis from Maruti Suzuki filing a trademark application for its 'transformation' trademark with respect to vehicles, apparatus for locomotion by land, air or water on a proposed-to-be-used basis. Volkswagen opposed Maruti Suzuki's trademark and said the latter had copied its mark in its entirety by merely adding a prefix 'Trans' to it. However, the trademarks registry rejected Volkswagen's opposition and registered Maruti Suzuki's trademark.

 

Thursday, the shares of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. ended 3.6% lower at INR 13,011 on the National Stock Exchange.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Deepshikha Bhardwaj

 

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