Case Law: BRITANNIA INDUSTRIES LTD. VS. GOOD DAY ORAL CARE & ORS.

In a recent case of BRITANNIA INDUSTRIES LTD. ("Plaintiff") Vs. GOOD DAY ORAL CARE & ORS. ("Defendant"), the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi decides whether the use of impugned trade mark by the Defendant amounts to an association and a mistaken identity with respect to the Plaintiff’s well-known trade mark.

The Plaintiff is the registered proprietor of trade mark GOOD DAY bearing Registration No. 452003 in Class 30 in respect of goods "Biscuits, bread and nonmedicated confectionery" and has been using the same since April 3rd 1986 and the trade mark GOOD DAY bearing Registration No. 4006020 in Class 30 in respect of goods "Biscuits" which has been in use since November 23rd 2018. The Plaintiff also owns several other registrations in India as well as in other jurisdictions for the word mark GOOD DAY.

The Plaintiff submits that the Defendant is using the trade mark GOOD DAY in respect of goods, "Toothpaste". The Plaintiff averred that the impugned trade mark of the Defendant is identical to the Plaintiff’s well-known mark GOOD DAY. Further, the Defendant also runs a website under the domain name ‘gooddayoralcare.com’, which includes the Plaintiff’s well-known mark GOOD DAY, having three variants of the goods.

The Plaintiff further submits that the Defendant has also wrongly adopted several representations of Plaintiff’s ‘smile device’ and the manner in which the Defendants are using the impugned trade mark might result in an association and a mistaken identity with respect to the Plaintiff’s trade mark.

The Court, after having gone through the contentions put forth by both the parties, opined that the documents placed on record by the Defendants demonstrate that they have filed the application of the impugned mark on "proposed to be used" basis. Thus, the Defendants are unable to substantiate as to how the use of impugned mark would not amount to infringement.

The Court stated that the adoption of impugned mark by the Defendant is prima facie not honest and is intended to take advantage of the reputation and goodwill of the Plaintiff’s trade mark GOOD DAY and is likely to mislead an average man of ordinary intelligence. Considering the circumstances of the case, the Court was not inclined to accept the Defendant’s request to defer orders.

In view of the circumstances, an ad interim injunction is passed against the Defendants, their partners, proprietors, companies, sister concerns, directors, executives, as the case may be, its officers, servants and agents, assignees or anyone else acting for/and on their behalf from launching, selling (physically or on online platforms), manufacturing, advertising/ marketing (in all media whatsoever, including but not limited to electronic media, social media, broadcast media and/or print media), offering for sale (physically or on online platforms) or in any manner dealing in goods, including but not limited to toothpastes and/or such allied and/or cognate goods bearing the impugned trade mark GOOD DAY or device mark GOOD DAY and/or any other such mark/ device, which is identical and/or deceptively similar to the Plaintiff’s registered trademark GOOD DAY and further to suspend the impugned domain name ‘gooddayoralcare.com’.