Bengaluru pastry shop branded itself like ‘Facebook’. Here’s what Delhi HC did

The Delhi high court has permanently restrained the owner of a Bengaluru confectionary shop under the name ‘Facebake’ from using any mark deceptively similar to that of social media giant Meta’s brand ‘Facebook’ mark, PTI reported.

On a lawsuit filed by Meta, Justice Navin Chawla said Facebook is a well-known trademark in the country and the visual representation adopted by Noufel Malol, the owner of confectionary firm Facebake, depicted a mala fide intent in obtaining unfair advantage, the agency reported.

“The user of a mark similar to ‘Facebook’ can lead to an unwary customer being at least interested in taking note of the defendant as having some kind of connection with the plaintiff and the mala fide of intent of the defendant was also evident from the fact that after an interim injunction was passed against the use of ‘Facebake’, the defendant changed the mark to ‘Facecake’ and chose not to defend the suit,” the judge noted.