On February 18, 2019, a single judge bench of the Delhi High Court (‘DHC’) dismissed multiple trade dress passing off lawsuits filed by Crocs Inc. (‘Crocs’) against various footwear manufactures including Bata, Liberty, and Relaxo. These lawsuits pertained to the manufacture and sale of footwear that allegedly mimicked the unique features of Crocs’ footwear, such as: (i) the placement of the curved shaped strip on the vamp, toe box, and toe cap; (ii) heel guard; and (iii) compositions of pattern and lines on the top inner side and bottom outer surface of the footwear, being elements that were also protected by way of registered designs in India (‘Crocs Suits’). The single bench of the DHC held that a registered design solely confers on the registrant, a right to restrain another person from infringing such registered design, and not to claim it as its trademark/ trade dress or to restrain another person from passing off its goods as that of the registrant. It was further held that a trade dress passing off action on the basis of a registered design would only be maintainable if the trade dress in question consisted of ‘something more’ than the design, which, as per the single judge bench of the DHC, was not established. It was therefore held that the Crocs Suits were not maintainable.

Crocs preferred an appeal against the aforesaid previous Judgment of the single bench of the DHC, and the Division Bench of the DHC (‘DB’) in its Judgment dated July 1, 2025,^[1] considered whether a passing off action can be maintained over a subject matter which is also protected as a registered design. The DB observed that passing off is a common law remedy which is independent of any statutory remedy and cannot be barred except where a statute expressly denies it. The DB further opined that while registration of a design as a trademark is barred, no bar exists on availing the recourse of passing off, insofar as the imitation of elements of a registered design misrepresents the origin of a product and is likely to trade on another person’s goodwill by way of such misrepresentation.

Accordingly, the Crocs Suits were held to be maintainable by the DB and restored for further adjudication.

[1] 2025:DHC:5037-DB.