Microsoft faces trademark dispute in Ahmedabad

Global software behemoth Microsoft Corporation and its Indian arm, Microsoft India, are facing a trademark infringement case filed by Ahmedabad-based data research and analysis player Azure Knowledge Corporation.

The civil suit, filed last month at the City Civil Court here, is about the conflict over the brand name ‘Azure’. The Ahmedabad player claims to be using it as a trademark for its various businesses since 1996, whereas Microsoft has been selling its cloud services platform in India under the brand name Azure since 2014.

Co-founded by a city-based entrepreneur, Azure Knowledge Corporation is also present in multiple countries including the US. It claims to have got its word mark and label mark registered in 1998 with its user date from 1996. Microsoft, on the other hand, introduced the mark Azure in India only in 2014.