After nearly 9 months of litigation over the packaging of their digestive biscuits brands, Britannia (the plaintiff) and ITC may be nearing a truce. The Delhi High Court, in an order dated July 8, has asked the two FMCG giants to reach a consensus regarding ITC’s new packaging for its digestive biscuits under the Sunfeast brand.

Late last year, Britannia dragged ITC to court claiming trademark infringement over its NutriChoice Digestive biscuits packaging. It claimed that the packaging of ITC’s Sunfeast Farmlite 5-Seed Digestive is ‘deceptively similar’ to its own Nutri Choice brand. In April this year, a single judge bench of the Delhi High Court ruled that the packaging of the two cannot be called deceptively similar since in both cases, the name of the product is abundantly clear.

However, a month later Britannia appealed on the court order claiming ITC’s promotion of the April order is causing harm to its goodwill. “It is averred that the impugned judgment is being publicised heavily and is therefore causing immense harm and injury leading to loss of goodwill and reputation of the appellant,” Britannia said in the appeal.

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The lawyers for Britannia also argued that the April judgement, “has erroneously applied principles pertaining to Word Marks, including elements of ‘phonetic similarity’, when there is no claim made in the suit for any Word Mark”.

The court gave both the parties until July 8 to respond to the fresh appeal made by Britannia. On July 8, ITC submitted to the court that it has changed its packaging for the aforementioned products. In response, the court has asked ITC to share the new packaging with Britannia for review. “In the event the appellant has any objection with regard to the new packaging/device mark, the same shall be stated in writing to the opposite party. The counsel for the parties assure this Court that they shall meet before the next date of hearing in a bid to amicably resolve the matters,” the order read. The next date for the hearing is August 2.

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