New Delhi, May 16.
The Delhi High Court has in an order passed on May 12, 2023, granted exclusive rights to use the brand name ‘SUGARLITE’ to Delhi Marketing, a Delhi based ‘Make in India’ firm that markets and sells Dahi under the brand name ‘SUGARLITE’, being the registered proprietor under Class 29.
Delhi Marketing, which owns several other popular brands such Dairy Best and Livlite, had filed a suit against Zydus Wellness. Now Zydus Wellness will not be able to use the brand name SugarLite in any permutation or combination for its products, as it has been using.
Zydus was selling stevia-based sugar under the brand name ‘SugarLite’. A division bench, comprising Justices Manmohan and Saurabh Banerjee, on May 12, 2023, held that the trial court was wrong.
Not only the competing marks were identical, the products were allied and cognate products as they are generally procured from the same source in the market and sold over the counter to almost the same class of purchasers, it held.
Therefore, there is likelihood of confusion in the minds of the general public in assuming that the two competing marks emanated from a common source of origin, it said.
The court also noted that Zydus knowingly took a big calculated risk in adopting an identically similar mark “SugarLite‟ as compared to Delhi Marketing’s registered trademark “SUGARLITE‟ despite knowing of its prior existence.
The bench set aside the previous order of the district judge and called the order of the trial court “arbitrary, capricious and perverse, completely ignoring the documents on record, passed against the settled principles of law.”
Delhi Marketing had filed a suit in 2020 before Patiala House District Court alleging that Zydus adopted this mark “Sugar Lite” despite complete knowledge of prior rights.
After an interim injunction was declined by the District Judge, Delhi Marketing approached the Delhi High Court in 2021 against the refusal to grant any interim injunction. The Delhi High Court ruled in its favour. This is a big win for the company, which is the real creator of the ‘SUGARLITE’ brand, a company release said.
