Safiya Malik

The High Court of Bombay Single Bench of Justice Sharmila U. Deshmukh granted interim relief in a trademark and copyright infringement suit by restraining the defendants from using packaging, trade dress, and labels similar to the plaintiff's registered trademarks. The Court held that the defendants' use of the mark, although registered, deviated from the actual device mark and constituted prima facie infringement of the plaintiff’s intellectual property rights. The court further directed that the interim injunction shall operate for four weeks and allowed the plaintiff to seek further reliefs upon obtaining appropriate leave.

The plaintiff, a proprietary owner of multiple registered trademarks under the Trade Marks Act, 1999, brought a commercial intellectual property suit seeking interim relief against the defendants for infringement of trademark, copyright, and passing off.

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The plaintiff’s trademarks include "PARACHUTE," "PARACHUTE ADVANSED," and "PARACHUTE JASMINE/PARACHUTE ADVANSED JASMINE." These marks were first adopted as early as 1948 and have been consistently used in connection with the sale of edible coconut oil and hair oil products. The plaintiff's product line is marketed in distinctively shaped blue containers bearing unique trade dress, including a flag device with a green border, the word "PARACHUTE" in a distinctive font, a coconut tree, and broken coconut imagery.

The plaintiff claimed ownership of all copyrights in the original artistic works, including the Flag Device, Parachute Tree Device, and Broken Coconut Device, all of which were registered. Notably, the Flag Device was declared a well-known trademark as published in the Trade Marks Journal on 24 February 2024. Variants of the products such as "PARACHUTE ADVANSED GOLD" and "PARACHUTE ADVANSED JASMINE" were launched in 2007 and 2010, respectively, with evolved packaging but retained essential features.

The defendants, engaged in the same line of business since 1994, launched products under the mark "COCOPLUS," including variants like "COCOPLUS JASMINE" and "COCOPLUS AMLA." The plaintiff became aware of the defendant’s application for the mark "UNIQ-PURE-COCO" in 2010 and "COCO-PLUS" in 2017 and subsequently opposed them. In February 2021, the plaintiff issued cease and desist notices to the defendants, alleging infringement of its packaging, trade dress, and labels.

Further investigation revealed that Defendant Nos. 2 to 4 were supplying containers to Defendant No. 1. Despite further notice in March 2021, no response was received. The plaintiff asserted that the defendants' packaging bore deceptive similarity to the plaintiff’s marks. Evidence was submitted, including sales turnover of Rs. 2,037 crore and promotional expenses of Rs. 13 crores for 2023-24.

The defendants contended that their mark "COCOPLUS" had been in use since 2005 and was registered. They argued that the mark was different from the plaintiff's and any similarity was coincidental or generic in nature. They denied copying the plaintiff’s trade dress and argued that delay in initiating legal proceedings should defeat the interim relief.

The plaintiff, in rejoinder, maintained that the defendants had deviated from their registered mark and that their current packaging was a dishonest imitation of the plaintiff’s. The plaintiff also referred to other instances where the defendants allegedly infringed third-party trademarks.

Justice Sharmila U. Deshmukh observed, "though the interim application seeks relief in respect of passing off, in the absence of leave being granted under Clause XIV of Letters Patent (Bombay), the Court has considered the submissions on infringement of trade mark and copyright."

The court recorded, "prima facie what is actually used by the Defendant as trademark is not its registered device mark. The Defendant has deviated from its registered mark and instead uses as part of its mark, the device of two broken coconuts with oil oozing out which is deceptively similar to that of the Plaintiff’s trade mark."

Justice Deshmukh stated, "the defence under Section 30(2)(e) of Trade Marks Act protecting the use of identical or similar trade mark which is registered is not available to the Defendant to escape the liability of infringement."

The court further observed, "the Plaintiff’s product is marketed in a distinct and unique shaped bottle/container. The Defendant’s product is marketed in identical shade of blue and bears the word 'Cocoplus'... with two coconut trees and device of two broken coconuts with coconut oil oozing out of the same."

Referring to the principles of visual impression, the court cited precedent: "It is the overall impression that customer gets as to the source and origin of the goods from visual impression of colour combination, shape of the container, packaging, etc."

In relation to delay, the court remarked, "delay by itself is not a sufficient defence to such an action especially where the use by the defendants is fraudulent."

Justice Deshmukh recorded, "it is not only necessary to protect the Plaintiff’s proprietary rights in the registered trade mark but also to protect the consumers."

The Court allowed the interim application in full and restrained the defendants and all associated parties from infringing the plaintiff’s registered trademarks numbered 1033844, 2425321, 2425322, 2425320, 2423236, 2423238, 3481083, 2878146, 2926904, 363235, and 737894. This includes using identical or similar marks, devices, labels, packaging, bottles, or containers to those depicted in Exhibit JJ-1.

The defendants were further restrained from infringing the "PARACHUTE ADVANSED" trademarks bearing registration numbers 1033842, 1547619, 399592, 977885, and 1444617, particularly any packaging or labels that are identical or deceptively similar, including the Parachute ADVANSED Packaging/Labels, Flag Device, Parachute Tree Device, Broken Coconut Device, or the distinctive blue and green colour combination.

Similarly, the court restrained the defendants from using any packaging, labels, bottles, or containers identical with or similar to the plaintiff’s "JASMINE" trademarks registered under numbers 1398440, 947770, 906080, 2195475, 2195474, and 5277072, including artistic features such as the Jasmine Logo and associated packaging.

An injunction was also granted to prevent infringement of the plaintiff’s copyrights in the artistic works featured in the Parachute Packaging/Labels, including the Flag Device, Parachute Tree Device, and Broken Coconut Device, as shown in Exhibits B-1 and B-2. The defendants were prohibited from reproducing these artistic works or using them on any product packaging or promotional materials.

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The court extended this copyright protection to the "PARACHUTE ADVANSED" packaging and labels (Exhibits I-1 and I-2), restricting the defendants from using or reproducing any substantial part of those artistic works.

With respect to the Jasmine product line, the court restrained the defendants from reproducing or copying artistic works including the Jasmine Packaging/Labels, Jasmine Artwork, and Jasmine Logo, specifically the items in Exhibit II-6 and related exhibits (N, P-1, P-2, Q, R-2, S-1, S-2).

Justice Sharmila U. Deshmukh further stated: "the interim application stands finally decided by the present order, the same is stayed for a period of four weeks."

Advocates Representing the Parties:

For the Petitioners: Hiren Kamod i/b Nishad Nadkarni, Aasif Navodia, Khushboo Jhunjhunwala, Jaanvi Chopra and Rakshita Singh

For the Respondents: Harsh Desai

Case Title: Marico Limited v. Zee Hygiene Products Pvt Ltd and Others

Neutral Citation: 2025: BHC-OS:9444

Case Number: IA (L) No. 33099 of 2024 in Commercial IP Suit (L) No. 32952 of 2024

Bench: Justice Sharmila U. Deshmukh