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2013 (8) TMI 748 - AT - Service TaxFranchisee services - The appellant entered into sub-licensing agreement with various seed procuring companies to transfer the technology obtained from BTC for a consideration in the form of sub-license fee and the Revenue seeks to levy service tax on this fee under ‘Franchisee services' - Held that:- The packages contain mark “Fusion BT” which only denotes that the seeds being sold contain Fusion BT genes, and it does not denote that the said mark is either a logo or a trademark or hallmark of the appellant - The department could not show that any logo or hallmark belonging to the appellant has been put on the packages manufactured/marketed by the sub-licensees. A laptop containing a label of ‘windows', only denotes that the processor or the operating system/software, as the case may be in the said laptop and by putting such label, the laptop manufacturing company does not represent ‘Microsoft' or become the franchisee of ‘Microsoft'. - in a franchisee transaction the franchisee loses his individual identity and represent the identity of franchisor to the outside world, as in the case of ‘McDonald' the customers are not concerned with who owns the ‘McDonald's restaurant (franchisee) - The customers identify it with ‘McDonald (the franchisor). The appellants had imported the Technology which is owned by BTC and patented in China - The said technology was imported in the form of the mother seeds and the same were multiplied in the laboratory by or on behalf of the appellants and given to the sub-licensee to further multiply for onward sale by them to the farmers for the purpose of growing commercial crop - The appellants were not granted any ‘representational right' from BTC to represent them in India, nor entitled to grant or they have actually granted any representational right to the sub-licensees. The department failed to show that the appellant (the franchisor) granted representational rights to franchisee to sell or manufacture or provided service identified with them - order set aside – Decided in favor of assesse.
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