Calcutta High Court Upholds Stay on 'IJM Gold Stag' Cigarettes

4:07 AM ETDeveloping

Health Desk

In Short: The Calcutta High Court has upheld a temporary injunction on the cigarette brand 'IJM Gold Stag', finding it deceptively similar to ITC's 'Gold Flake' cigarettes in a trademark infringement case.

Justices Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya and Supratim Bhattacharya noted that the common man's perception of cigarette packaging is crucial, as consumers do not have a 'photographic memory' of the exact mark of the product they intend to buy.

The court emphasized that when a purchaser buys a cigarette packet, it is the total picture, including the statutory image, that they see, and not just the individual mark.

The single judge of the Calcutta High Court had initially granted ITC a temporary stay on the 'IJM Gold Stag' brand.

The manufacturer's counsel, senior advocate Tilak Kumar Bose and advocate Soumya Ray Choudhury, argued that the business was confined to Punjab and that the Calcutta High Court had no jurisdiction over the matter.

ITC's counsel, senior advocate SN Mukherjee and advocate Paritosh Sinha, countered that the word 'gold' was a 'pragmatic feature' of ITC's trademark and had gained a secondary meaning in relation to the company.

The High Court ruled that ITC's principal office was within its territory, and thus it had the authority to deal with the case.

The counsel for 'IJM Gold Stag' also pointed out that ITC did not have a separate registration for the word 'gold', which is a generic term, and that ITC did not have a monopoly over the color combination of red and gold.

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The counsel contended that although the two products were being called similar because of the word “gold,” ITC did not have a separate registration for the word ‘gold’, which was otherwise a generic word.
The counsel submitted that the colour combination of the ITC product was gold-brown and that of the man was yellow-gold, with a vertical red ribbon.
The counsel further contended that ITC had been continuously and extensively using the word ‘gold’ with its products since the year 1905.

Sources

The Indian Expresslink