Delhi High Court held no passing off if Apple uses the term SPLITVIEW

The Delhi High Court vide its judgment dated July 04, 2018 in a case titled Rohit Singh vs. Apple Inc. ruled in favour of Apple in a suit for passing off. The said suit was filed by the plaintiffs, Rohit Singh and Vyooh Low Level Computing LL for an injunction to restrain the defendant Apple Inc. USA from using the mark "SPLITVIEW‟ in relation to any of its software products. Apple primarily argued that the phrase "SPLITVIEW is inherently descriptive as it describes the characteristics and the intended purpose of product with respect to which it is used. It was argued that the plaintiff's product "SPLITVIEW‟, which is a descriptive term, informs the users of the precise "view" "splitting" function of the plaintiff's software. Apple further argued that the combination of the terms "Split" and "View‟ was in no way unique to the plaintiffs and there were at least 1839 patents with a priority date before September, 2005 which used the combination terms "SPLITVIEW‟ or the