Debranding and refurbishing "end-of-life" goods does not constitute trademark infringement, passing off, or reverse passing off.

The Appellants (Western Digital and Seagate) manufacture Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) sold to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs).

Once these HDDs reach "end-of-life" (expiry of manufacturer warranty), they are extracted from discarded equipment abroad and imported into India.

The Respondents (refurbishers) purchase these imported HDDs, erase the Appellants' trademarks, software, and serial numbers, and then rebrand them with their own trademarks and new serial/model numbers for sale in India with their own warranties.

The Appellants filed suits alleging trademark infringement, passing off, and "reverse passing off".

A learned Single Judge refused a total injunction but permitted sales subject to strict packaging disclosures.

The Appellants challenged this interlocutory order.

Whether the act of debranding and rebranding refurbished "end-of-life" goods constitutes "reverse passing off" under Indian law.

Whether the removal of the original trademark and subsequent sale of refurbished goods constitutes trademark infringement under Section 29 read with Sections 30(3) and 30(4) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999.

Whether the principle of international exhaustion applies to "end-of-life" goods lawfully acquired from the international market.

The court primarily applied Section 29 of the Trade Marks Act, 1999, which defines infringement as the unauthorized "use" of a registered mark in the course of trade.

It interpreted Section 30(3), which codifies the principle of international exhaustion, protecting the sale of "lawfully acquired" goods bearing a registered mark.

It further analyzed Section 30(4), which allows a proprietor to oppose further dealings if there are "legitimate reasons," such as when the condition of goods is "changed or impaired".

The court relied on Kapil Wadhwa v. Samsung Electronics Co. [2012 SCC OnLine Del 5172] to affirm that "market" under Section 30(3) includes the international market.

Regarding passing off, it applied the "Classical Trinity" (goodwill, misrepresentation, damage) formulated in cases like Satyam Infoway Ltd v. Siffynet Solutions (P) Ltd.

The Court held that "reverse passing off" (representing another's goods as one's own) is not an actionable tort under Section 27(2) of the Act, which only protects against passing off one's own goods as another's.

Even if actionable, the Appellants failed the "initial interest confusion" test because consumers would not identify the debranded HDDs as the Appellants' products at the point of sale; technical tools like "Crystal Disk Info" to trace origins do not suffice for a passing off claim.

Regarding infringement, the Court reasoned that since Respondents remove the Appellants' marks before sale, there is no "use" of the registered mark under Section 29, thus no infringement occurs.

It rejected the argument under Section 30(4), applying the principle of noscitur a sociis to rule that "changed" must be read with "impaired"; refurbishing discarded HDDs to make them functional does not constitute a negative impairment that would give the proprietor a legitimate reason to object.

The Court found the acquisition "lawful" as no contractual or statutory proscription prohibited OEMs from selling end-of-life HDDs.

Reverse passing off is foreign to Indian trademark jurisprudence.

Debranding and selling refurbished goods does not constitute infringement under Section 29 because the plaintiff's mark is not "used".

The Respondents lawfully acquired the goods, satisfying Section 30(3).

Refurbishment is not a "change or impairment" under Section 30(4) as it does not damage the proprietor's reputation once the "umbilical cord" of warranty is severed.

The Court maintained the Single Judge's directions regarding mandatory disclosures on packaging to ensure the "whole truth" is provided to consumers.