Registered Indian trade mark rights preserve small scale exemption despite a foreign company using the same brand name.

Small scale exemption under the relevant notifications is unavailable only where the manufacturer uses another person's brand name. Where the trade mark is registered in the assessee's name in India, the assessee has the exclusive right to use that mark for the registered goods, and it is not treated as the brand name of another person for exemption purposes. The mere existence of a foreign company with the same brand name does not defeat that entitlement when no Indian trade mark right is asserted by that foreign entity. Accordingly, the article states that the exemption was available and the bar on another's brand name did not apply.

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Issues: Whether the assessee was entitled to small scale exemption when the brand name used on its goods was registered in its own name in India, notwithstanding the existence of a foreign company with the same brand name.

Analysis: The notifications governing small scale exemption denied the benefit where a manufacturer affixed the brand name of another person. The decisive factor was the ownership of the trade mark in India. The brand name was found to have been registered in the assessee's favour by the trade marks authority, which conferred an exclusive right to use the mark in relation to the registered goods. Once the mark stood registered in India in the assessee's name, no other person could claim the right to use it in India for those goods. The mere existence of a foreign company with the same name did not alter the assessee's legal entitlement, particularly when no claim was made to the Indian trade mark.

Conclusion: The assessee was entitled to the small scale exemption, and the bar relating to use of another person's brand name did not apply.

Final Conclusion: The denial of exemption was unsustainable, and the appeals succeeded with the impugned order set aside.

Ratio Decidendi: A brand name registered in the assessee's name in India is not the brand name of another person for purposes of the small scale exemption notifications, and foreign ownership unasserted in India does not defeat that entitlement.

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