Cadbury has a reason to rejoice as the Delhi High Court has passed an interim ex-parte order favouring the company in its fight against Lotte India Corporation over the use of the trademark ?Choclairs?.
In a suit filed by Cadbury UK and Cadbury India, Justice Muralidhar has restrained Lotte from ?manufacturing, selling, marketing, promoting… or attempting to use or asserting any right to use or applying to register or to maintain the applications, or to register any of the marks ?Parry’s Choclairs?, “Choclairs Lotte” or ?Lotte Choclairs? or any other mark similar to the trade mark Choclairs of the plaintiffs (Cadbury UK and Cadbury India)?.
The court has also gone on to restrain Lotte India from acting in violation of the rights of Cadbury in the trademark ‘Choclairs’ and from passing off their goods as Cadbury’s goods, along with using any other indication to show any association or affiliation to Cadbury or to its goods, Choclairs, in this case.
Lotte India ? a subsidiary of Lotte Confectionery, South Korea ? manufactures and markets confectionery products across India and has a wide range of confectionery products such as Coffy Bite, Lacto King, Eclairs, Caramilk, Coconut Punch and Chocopie. Its parent company is one of the leading manufacturers of confectionery products around the globe.
During the proceedings, Cadbury argued that the mark ‘Choclairs’ or ‘Cadbury Choclairs’ has been used by Cadbury for promoting, marketing and selling of their products in various countries including Indonesia, China, Malaysia and South Africa, adding that as per a survey carried out by them in June 2013 ‘Parry Choclairs’ or ‘Lotte Choclairs’ was not found anywhere in India.
Cadbury further told the court that it was seeking to extend the reach of ‘Choclairs’ in India and to that end, had rebranded ‘Eclairs’ and relaunched it as ‘Cadbury Choclairs’ in June 2013.
After considering their contentions, the court recorded that Cadbury ?had made out a case for grant of an ad interim ex-parte injunction in their favour? and that ?in the absence of the interim order, Cadbury will suffer irreparable loss and injury?.
