PARLE PRODUCTS (P) LTD. versus J. P. & CO. MYSORE

PARLE PRODUCTS (P) LTD.

J. P. & CO. MYSORE

January 28, 1972

[C. A. VAIDIALINGAM, I. D. DUA AND G. K. MITTER, JI.]

Trade and Merchandise Marks Act, 1958, s. 2(d)-'Deceptivel.v si111i/ar'-Proper approach by court for deter111ining if one 1nark is decep-tirely sin1ilar to another.

The appellants filed suit for an injunction restraining the respondents from infringing their registered trade mark used on packets of bi>cliits manufactured by them.. The suit was dismissed by the trial. court and the High Court.

Allowing the appeal to this Court,

HELD: (I) Under the Trade and Merchandise Marks Act, 1958, registe'red trade mark is infringed by person who uses, in the course of trade, mark which is identical with or deceptively similar to, the trade mark, in relation to any ~oodS in respect of which the trade mark is registered; and the expression 'deceptively similar' means mark which so nearly resembles another mark as likely to deceive or cau~ confusion. Jn order to come to the conclusion whether one mark is deceptively similar to another the broad end es·senti(ll features of the two arc to be considered. . They should not be pla~ed side by side to find out if there are any dif!erenc~ in the design, and if so, whether they a~ of such character as to prevent one .. ign from being mistaken for the other. Jt would be enough if the. impugned mark bears such on overall .similarity to the registered mark as would be likely to mislead person usually doaling with one to accept the othe'r if offered to him. [292 B-D; 294 D·FJ

In this case, the packets of biscuits manufactured by ihe appellants and respondents were practically of the same size, the colour scheme of tho two wrappers was almost the same, and the designs on both, though not identical, bore such close resemblance that one ci:>uld easily be mistaken for the other. If one was not careful enough to note the peculiar featurea of the wrapper on the phintiffs' goods, he might easily mistake the Jefendants' wrapper for the plaintiffs' if shown to him some time after he had seen the plaintiffs' wrapper. Though the trial court and the High . Court had concurrently lound that the defendants' wrapper was not decep-tively similar to thot of the plaintiffs, the finding must be set aside as it 11'0s not arrived at on proper consideration of the Jaw. [294 F-Hl

Durga Dutt v. Navaratna Laboratori<S L196S] I S C.R. 737 followod.

Karly's Law of Trade Marks and Trade Names, 9th ed. para 338 referrid to.

C1VIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: C.A. No. 1051 of 1967.

Appeal by special leave from the judgment and decree dated July 5, 1966 of the Mysore High Court in Regular First Appeal No. 170 of 1963.

S. T. Desai and I. N. Shroff, for the appellant.

S. K. Mehta and K. L. Mehta, for the respondent.

The Jud~ent of the Court was delivered by

Mitter, J. This is an appeal by special leave from judgml\nt of the Mysore High Court confirming the dismissal of suit for an injunction restraining the respondent from infringing the re-gistered trade mark of the plaintiffs used on packets of biscuits.

The facts are as follows. The plaiJltiffs-appellants before us are manufacturers of biscuits and confectionery and are owners of certain registered trade marks. One of them is the word "Gluco'' used on their half pound biscuit packets. Another re-gistered trade mark of theirs is wrapper with its colour scheme, general ·set up and entire collocation of words registered under the Trade Marks Act 1940 a> No. 9184 of 7th December, 1942. This wrapper is used in connection with the sale of their biscuits known as "Parle's Gluco Biscuits" printed on the wrapper. The wrapper is of buff colour and depicts farm yard with girl in the centre carrying pail of water and cows and hens around her on the background of farmyard house and trees. The plaintiffs claim that they have been selling their biscuits on an extensive scale for many years past under the said trade mark which ac-quired great reputation. and goodwill among the members of the public. They claimed to have discovered in March 1961 that the defendants were manufacturing, selling and offering for sale biscuits in wrapper which according to them was deceptively• similar to their registered trade mark. The plaintiffs assert that this act of the defendant constitutes an infringement of their trade mark rights. As in spite of lawyer's notice the defendants per, sisted in manlifacturing, selling and using the wrappers com-plained of with regard to their biscuits, the plaintiffs filed the suit claiming injunction as already mentioned.

The defendants pleaded ignorance of the registration of the trade marks claimed by the plaintiffs. They denied that the wrap-per used by them in connection with the sale of their biscuits was deceptively similar to the plaintiffs' trade marks as alleged or that they had in any way infringed the trade mark rigl!ts of the plain-tiffs. They .pleaded further th.at there was good deal of differ-ence in the design of their wrapper from that of the plaintiffs and relied on certain features of their design which were said to be quite dissimilar to those of the plaintiffs' wrapper inasmuch as the defendant's wrapper contained the picture of girl supporting with one hand bundle of hay on her head and carrying sickle and bundle of food in the other, the cows and hens being unlike

those of the plaintiffs' wrappers. There was also said to be differ-ence in the design of the buildings on the two wrappers and the words printed on the two wrappers were. distinct and separate.

The trial court meticulously examined the features found on the two wrappers aild the packets of biscuits produced before it and took the view that there were greater points of dissimiiari1y than of similarity between' the two and as such it was unlikely that the defendants, goods could be passed off as and for the goods of the plaintiffs. After pointing out the distinguishing features of the wrappers; th(l: trial court concluded that there was no chance of seller committing fraud on customer and an ordinary pur-' chaser would certainly refuse to purchase the defendants' goods if he was offered them as and for the p!~intiffs' goods. Accordingly the trial court held that the plaintiffs had failed lo establish their tase.Although the High Court held that in such case it was not necessary for the plaintiffs to adduce evidence that any particular j) indiv.idual had been deceived by the defendants' wrapper and it wa& undeniable that the general get up of the two wrappers was more or Jess similar, it went on to observe that the courtl!ad· to. bear in· mind that it was dealing with packets of biscuits which were generally used by people of the upper classes, and pur-chaser desirous of getting packet of Parle biscuits would go and ask for the same as such, in which case there could be no :E scope for deception; again the plaintiffs could have no cause for :grievance if purchaser was content to buy any biscuits which were offered to liim by the shopkeeper. The High Court also took the. view that there were several distinguishing features bet-ween the two wrappers and these could be noticed even from distance. According to the High Court, the similarity in the· two wrappers lay in the facts that l>oth were oartly yellow and partly white. in colour and both bore the delign ol Wei and some bird~. "But" the High Court said "there the sirnilanty ends. The lady m the wrapper used by the plaintiff company has pot on her hand while the lady in the wrapper used by the defendant has hay-bundle on her head. In fact, they are not identical ~ features: !n, the defendants' wrapper we have got cow and m t?e plamtiffs wrapper we have got two calves. The upper portion of the defendants wrapper is not similar to that of the plaintiffs' wrapper." 'the Righ Court went on to comment:

· "It is true that in passing off action, one is not to look to minor details but must take into c'onsideration JI the broad features. · Even if we take the broad features ef the two wrappers into consideration we do not think · ithat they Jlre similar. At any rate, they are not so sirni· tar 11s to deceive an· ordinary purchaser of biscuits."

With due respect to the learned Judges of the High Court, we are constrain¢ to.remark that they fell into an error. The plain(iffs' marks were registered under the Trade Marks Act, 1940 which was however repealed by s. 136 of the. Trade and Merchandise Marks Act, 1958. Under sub-s. (2) of the said section any registration under the Act of 1940 if in force at the commencement of the Act of 1958 was to continue in force and have effect as if made, issued and given under the corresponding provisions of the Act of 1958. Under s. 21(1) of the Ac.t of 1940 the registration of person iii the register as proprietor of trade mark in respect of any goods gave to. that person the exclusive right to the use of the Trade mark in relation to those goods and that right was to be deemed to be infringed by any person who, not being the proprietor of the trade mark or registered user thereof using by way of the permitt.ed use, used mark identical with it or so n~arly resembling it as to be likely to deceive or cause 9onfusion, in the course of trade, in relation to any goods in respect of which it was registered. Under s. 28(1) of the Trade and Merc1_1andise Marks Act, 1958 the registration of trade mark in Part or Part of the register gave to the registered proprietor of the trade mark the exclusive right to the use of the trade mark in relation to the goods in respect of which the trade mark was registered and to obtain relief in respect of the infringement of the trade mark in the manner provided by the Act. Under s. 29(1) :

"A registered trade mark is infringed by person who, not being the registered proprietor of the trade mark or registered user thereof using by way of per-mitted use, uses in the course of 'trade mark which is identical with, or deceptively similar to, the trade mark, in relation to any goods in respect of which the trade mark is registered and in such manner as to render the use of the mark likely to be taken as being used as trade mark."

The expression '.'deceptively similar" has now been defined under s. 2(d) of..the Act of 1958 thus:

"A mark shall. be deemed to be deceptively similar to another mark if it so nearly resembles that other mark as to be likely to <!eceive or cause col'lfusion;"

It is 1IO be noted .that although there was no such provision in the definition section of the Act of 1940 s. 21 ( 1 )' of the said Act was to the same effect. The Indian Trade Marks Act of 1940 was based on the English Trade Marks Act, 19 3 8 and s. 21 of the Act of 1940 was more or less similar to s. 4 of the English· Act of 1938. ·

To decide the question as to whether the plaintiffs' right to trade mark has been infringed in particular case, the approach must not be that in an action for passing off goods of the defendant as and for those of the plaintiff. According to this, Court in Durga Dutt v. Navaratna Laboratories( [1]):

"While an action for passing off is Common Law remedy being in subs\allce an action for deceit, that is, passing off by person of his own goods as those of another, that is not.the gist of an action for infringement. The act;ion for infringement is statutory remedy con-ferred on the registered proprietor of registered trade· mark for the vindication of the exclusive right to the use of the trade mark in relation to those goods (vide s. 21 of the Act). The use by the defendant\ of the trade mark of the plantiff is not essential in an action for passing off, but is the sine qua non in the case of an action for infringement."

In the above case the <::ourt further pointed out :

"In an action for infringement, the plaintiff must, no doubt, make out that the use of the defendant's mark is likely to deceive, but where tlhe similarity between the plaintiff's and the defendant's mark ls so close either visually, phonetically or otherwise and tho court reaches the conclusion that there is an imitation, no further evidence is required to establish that the plaintiff's rights are violated. Expressed in· another way, if the essential features of the trade mark of the plaintiff have been adopted by the defendant, the fact that the get-up, packing and other writing or 1narks on the goods or on the packets in which he offers his gooas for sale show marked differences, or indicate clearly trade origin different from that of the regis-tered proprietor __ oJ the mark would be immaterial; whereas in the case of passing off, the defendant may escape liability if he can show that the added matter is sufficient to distinguish his goods from those of the plaintiff."

According to Karly's Law of Trade Marks and Trade (9th edition paragraph 838) :

"Two marks,_ "".hen placed side by side, may exhibit many and various differences vet the main idea left on· the mind by both may be the same. · penen acquaint-ed with one mark, and not having the. two side by side

for comparison, might well be deceived, if the goods were allowed to be impressed with the second mark, into belief that he was dealing with goods which bore the same mark as that with which he was acquainted. Thus, for exampLe, mark may represent game of football; another mark may show players in different dress, and in very different positions, and yet the idea conveyed by each might be simply game of football. It would be too much to expect thiit persons de.aling with trade-marked goods, and relying, as they frequently do, uµon marks, should be able to remember th.e exact details of the marks upon the goods with which they are in the habit of dealing. Marks are remembered rather by general impressions or by some significant detail than by any photographic recollection of the whole. More-over, variations in detail might well be supposed by customers to have been made. by the owners of the trade mark they are already acquainted with for reasons of their own."

It is .therefore clear that in order to come to the conclusion whether one mark is. deceptively similar to another, the broad and essential features of the t:wo are to be considered. They should not be placed side by side to find out if there are any differences in the design and if so, whether they are of such character as to prevent one desi2n from hein2 mistaken for the other. It would be enough if the impugned mark bears such an overall .similarity to the regiStered mark ils would be likely to mislead person usually dealing with one to accept the other if offered to him:. In this case we find that the packets are practically of the same size, the colour scheme of the two wrappers is almost the same; the design on both though not identical bears such Close resemblance that one can easily be mistaken for the other. The essential features of both are that there is girl with one arm raised and carrying something in the other with cow or cows near her and hens or chickens in the foregi'ound. In the background there is farm house with fence. The word "Gluco Biscuits" in·· one and "Glucose Biscuits" on the other occupy prominent place at the top with good deal of similarity between the. two writings. Anyone in our opinion who has look at one of the packets to-day may easily mistake the other if shown on another dav as being the same article which he had seett before. U one was not careful enough to note the peculiar features of the wrapper on the plain-H tiffs' goods. he might easilv mistake the def Pndants' wrapper for the plaintiffs' if shown to him some time after he had seen the -plaintiffs'. After_all, an ordinary l'\Jrc_haser is not gifted with

the powers of observation of Sherlock Holmes. We have therefore no doubt that the defendants' wrapper is deceptively similar to the plaintiffs' which was registered. We do llot think it necessary 1to refer to tl!e decisions referred to at the Bar as in our view each case will have to be judged on its own features and it would be of no use to note on how many points there. was similarity and in how many others there was absence of it.

It was ar~ued before us th.wt as both the trial court and the High Court had come to the same conclusion namely, that the defendants', wrapper was not deceptively similar to the plaintiffs', the finding is one of fact which should not be disturbed by this . Court. Normally, no doubt this Court does not disturb con-current finding of fact. But where, as here, we find that the finding was arrived at not 011 proper consideration of the law on the subject it js our duty to set the same aside on appeal.

In the result, we hold tha~ the defendant had infringed the . registered trade. mark of the. plaintifl and the suit of the plaintiff should be decreed and -an injunction granted restraining the defendant-respondent from selling or using il1 any manner what• soever biscuits in ·wrappers similar in appearance to the registered trade mark of the pbintiffs on their packets. The appellants will be entitled to their costs throughout.

Appeal allo\ved.