Informist, Wednesday, Sep 11, 2024

NEW DELHI – The Delhi High Court has barred Terre Primitive, an Italian company, from selling, marketing and advertising its cookies and chocolate covered biscuits with a name similar to "Amul", till the next hearing on Jan 7. The court ordered Terre Primitive to take down the listing of products bearing the "Amuleti" name from its website.

The court's orders came following a petition by Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. It asked the Italian company to surrender to the Gujarat Milk Federation all goods available with the name "Amuleti" for destruction.

Further, it ordered deletion of all social media pages of the product relating to "Amuleti". Issuing notice to the Italian company, the high court placed the matter for hearing on Jan 7.

"In the above said circumstances, the plaintiffs have demonstrated a prima facie case for grant of injunction and, in case, no ex parte ad interim injunction is granted, the plaintiffs will suffer an irreparable loss," said the high court. Further balance of convenience also lies in favour of the federation, and against the Italian company, the court added.

The high court was hearing a trademark injunction suit by Gujarat Milk Federation against the Italian company for selling cookies and chocolate covered biscuits with the "Amuleti" name. The federation said that a side by side comparison of the Italian company's marks and its mark "Amul" shows that they are structurally and visually similar and is, therefore, bound to cause confusion in the minds of the unwary and gullible public.

The federation said it has been using the trademark "Amul" for its products since 1958. The Italian company's website was created in 2020 and it was thus believed that they have been using the said mark only since that year, said the federation.

The petitioner argued that its trademark "Amul" is India's largest food brand and is also an indigenous brand which has been recognised as a well known trademark by the Intellectual Property Appellate Board. The sales turnover of the products under the petitioner's trademark "Amul" and other variants have been in excess of 20 bln rupees for every year since 2001, and it has crossed 550 bln rupees during the last financial year, said the federation. End

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Aditya Sakorkar

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