Blenders Pride vs London Pride | ‘Premium Whiskey Consumers Will Be Able To Differentiate’: MP High Court In Trademark Infringement Suit

Case: Pernod Ricard India Private Limited & Anr v. Karanveer Singh Chhabra Trading As J.K. Enterprises

Coram: Justices Pranay Verma and S.A. Dharmadhikari

Case No.: Misc. Appeal No. 232 of 2021

Court Observation: “….It can be safely presumed with a sufficient deal of certainty that the consumers of such products would be mostly literate and having reasonable intelligence to distinguish between the bottles of Blenders Pride/Imperial Blue and that of London Pride. Even if they are of average intelligence with imperfect recollection, they would be able to differentiate between the rival competing brands… Liquor consumers of scotch whiskey are educated and discerning type. They are literate persons belonging to the affluent class of society.”

“…The first word of the trade mark of plaintiffs is ‘Blenders’ whereas that of the defendant is ‘London’. There is absolutely no similarity in them leave aside any dissimilarity. ‘PRIDE’ being a generic, common place and laudatory expression in ‘BLENDERS PRIDE’ mark, the common man would certainly treat ‘BLENDERS’ part of plaintiff’s mark as the dominant part. The question of comparison of the words ‘Imperial Blue’ and ‘London Pride’ does not even arise…”

“The plaintiff does not possess any registration in respect of the colours used in its Imperial Blue mark, or in any individual part of the design, including the dome shape. In terms of Section 2 (m) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 the plaintiffs could have sought registration in respect of combination of colours used in their label or for the shape of their bottle. That has not been done by them…”

“…Thus, examining the marks of plaintiffs with the mark of the defendant as a whole, neither there is any visual nor phonetic nor structural similarity between any of the boxes or bottles of the plaintiffs with that of the boxes or bottles of the defendant. It is not a matter of mere dissimilarity but is a case of there being no actual similarity.”

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Keywords

Blenders Pride vs London Pride, MP High Court, Trademark Infringement