No deceptive similarity between ‘Officer’s Choice’ and ‘Fauji’, Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has rejected Allied Blenders and Distillers Pvt Ltd’s trademark infringement suit for its mark ‘Officer’s Choice’ against the owner of another alcoholic beverage, ‘Fauji’..The judgment was passed by a Single Judge Bench of Justice JR Midha..Allied Blenders had moved the High Court to restrain the defendants from using the mark ‘Fauji’ for being conceptually and deceptively similar to its brand..It was submitted that the trademark ‘Officer’s Choice’ was adopted by the plaintiff in 1988 and that it even its label has been registered under the Copyright Act, 1957..The plaintiff company argued that the idea behind trademark ‘Officer’s Choice’ and the defendants’ trademark was similar, as ‘Fauji’ was a commonly used Hindi phrase which meant a ‘Military Officer’..Furthermore, the upward slanting stylized font as well as the color combination of the two marks was similar, the plaintiff stated..It was therefore argued that since both the products were in the same business and were using their respective marks for goods of identical description i.e. whisky, the likelihood of the confusion amongst the consumers was very high..Rejecting all the objections, the Court concluded that there was “no resemblance or similarity” between plaintiff’s trademark ‘Officer’s Choice’ and the defendants’ mark ‘Fauji’..The Court observed that not only were the two marks phonetically different, the meaning of the two words was also different..“The word “Officer” refers to “a person in power” whereas the word “Fauji” means a soldier who is not a military officer. The plaintiff‟s submission that “Fauji” means a Military Officer is not correct and is rejected.”.It also rejected the submission that the defendants used a font identical to that of the plaintiff’s product..The Court further recorded that while the epaulette on the defendants’ product depicts “Three Stars” of a soldier, the epaulette on that of the plaintiff’s brand is that of an officer..It thus concluded that there was no similarity between the marks and labels of both the parties and that there was no likelihood of a consumer being confused between the products..It was therefore held,.“This Court is of the view that there is no legal and valid cause of action in favour of the plaintiff and against the defendants. The plaintiff has abused the process of law by filing this frivolous suit. This Court, therefore, invokes the power under Order VII Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure to reject the suit.”.The plaintiff was represented by Senior Advocate Rajiv Nayar with Advocates Sanjay Chhabra, Pundreek Dwivedi and Vijay Laxmi Mewara..Read the judgment: