The Gujarat high court has directed that when there is an arrangement between two parties, one of the parties should not use a similar or deceptive label by merely adding one item to the label. The ruling was made in a case between two tea companies over copyright infringement.
The court then granted an injunction in favour of the Gujarat Tea Depot (GTD) against Savaliya Tea Packers Private Limited (STPPL). GTD owns the tea brand Wagh Bakri. The court mentioned that when there is an arrangement between the parties to not use the same/similar/ deceptively similar label then the defendant cannot claim that his label is different from that of the plaintiff by merely adding one item to the label.
The GTD approach the Gujarat High Court after a lower court after it learned of STPPL’s label which was very similar to that of GTD. The 100-year-old company first approached the lower court after it learned of STPPL’s label which was very similar to that of GTD.
In July 2020, It first issued a legal notice and later both companies signed an MoU under which STPPL took an undertaking not to use a label similar to GTD. Afterwards, STPPL applied to register a new label which was also, as claimed by the GTD, identical and deceptively similar to its company’s label. GTD then served a notice and filed a suit demanding an injunction against the defendant company. However, the lower court did not grant an order and the matter reached the High Court.
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