Kamats Restaurants recently won a lawsuit against Mr. Alok Chandewar, having a Hotel and Restaurant at Mahad Maharashtra on the Mumbai Goa highway. He was barred from using the word Kamath in the name of his Hotel which he changed from Kuber Residency to Kuber Kamath Residency. This is due to the word ‘Kamats’ that has established its goodwill for serving hot, healthy, and tasty South Indian food, all over Maharashtra and Gujarat highways for the past 80 years as an iconic brand. This unethical practice was causing confusion among their customers and damaging the brand’s reputation.
When asked Dr. Vikram Vithal Kamat in detail about the proceedings, he mentioned, “As a reputable and established business in the industry, we take great pride in our brand name and the trust that it represents. We have worked hard to build our brand and ensure that our customers know that they can rely on us for hot, healthy, and tasty South Indian food. The honorable court found his adoption of the mark to be dishonest and upheld our right, as we hold the registered trademark and are the legal owners of the brand, and run various restaurants under the Kamats and Vithal Kamats names along the highways for decades. The court found that merely changing Kamats ‘S’ with ‘H’ is an infringement of the plaintiff’s trademarks and copyright.”
This wasn’t the first time that Kamats India had to bar other restaurants from using their name. In an attempt to maintain their brand’s reputation, they have filed and won numerous cases against various restaurants trying to pass off the immense goodwill of the iconic Kamats, which is associated with long-standing trust and is recognized as the best Indian vegetarian restaurant chain.