Campa Cola is a soft drinks’ company which was popular in the country in the 1970s and 80s, primarily because Coca Cola pulled out all its operations in India in 1977 due to the then Government’s policies, refusing to dilute its stake.
Eventually, Campa Cola was pushed out of its erstwhile market share dominance with the comeback of the American goliaths Coca Cola and Pepsi, and the homegrown Thums Up in the 90s after the liberalization and globalization movement. The brand has now been revived after being purchased by Reliance Industries in 2022 from the Pure Drinks Group for 22 crore, and is expected to shake up the soft drinks market as part of Reliance’s FMCG portfolio.
Campa Beverages Pvt. Ltd. adopted the trade mark ‘Campa’ in its corporate name in 1972, and along with the Pure Drinks Group, the use of the trade mark began 5 years later in 1977. Via a deed of assignment, the Pure Drinks Group assigned all the ‘Campa’ related trademarks to Campa Beverages Pvt. Ltd. in 1983. Almost 40 years later in 2022, the trade mark was assigned to Reliance Retail as it acquired the brand, henceforth the owner of ‘Campa’ marks and all the related artworks. Reliance rebranded the logo upon acquisition: from the old logo to the text Campa written on a dichromatic background. The colours of the background change depending on the flavour.
Infringement Of Trade mark
In Reliance Retail Ltd. v Md. Sirajuddin and Beauty Bibi, the plaintiff argued for trade mark infringement by the defendants, proprietors of the soft drink brand ‘Jhampa,’ after having sent the latter a cease-and-desist notice to stop the use of the unlawful trade mark. The plaintiff alleged similarity on the grounds that the name of the ‘Jhampa’ brand is phonetically very similar to the plaintiff’s mark, only replacing the ‘C’ of Campa with a ‘Jh.’ The plaintiff argued that this is a difference in the minutia and the changes are minor and inconsequential. Additionally, the logo of the ‘Jhampa’ brand is very similar to the plaintiff’s – with a similar font and colour for the text, as well as similar colours for the different flavours (violet and red for the cola flavour variant, orange and red for orange flavour, and yellow and green for the lemon flavoured drink.) The background of the text for both is also a similar shaped paint stripe. The plaintiff alleged dishonesty on behalf of the defendants on the basis that the similarities did not stop at the word marks, and the replication of the colour schemes as well makes the defendants’ branding deceptively similar to Reliance Retail’s mark.
The plaintiff also submitted that the ‘Campa’ trade mark was one with significant history and had generated reputation and goodwill after having been used openly, continuously, and extensively for almost half of a century. Furthermore, the new logo adopted by the plaintiff after its acquisition had been well advertised – the plaintiff having dedicated immense time, money, and effort in the relaunch through promotional and social media campaigns, and advertisements. Amounts to the tune of Rs.35,00,00,000/- and Rs.75,00,00,000/- had been spent by the plaintiff on the brand for marketing purposes. It submitted that the popularity of the mark was evidenced by the substantial turnover of the brand in the previous financial years.
Conclusion – Interim Order
The single judge bench consisting of Justice RI Chagla noted that prima facie, it could be seen that the defendants’ brand ‘Jhampa’ was visually, phonetically, and structurally similar to the long established ‘Campa’ trade mark – the Jhampa branding under dispute is a reproduction of the plaintiffs’ artistic trademarks, and that the additional material on the defendant’s labels were not enough to distinguish between the two brands either. Further, mala fide intention on the part of the defendants is evident as it only applied to register the ‘Jhampa’ trade mark citing usage beginning from August this year after it received a cease-and-desist notice from Reliance in October. The defendants in their arguments had averred that ‘Jhampa’ was the name of their village – Justice Chagla held this argument to be untenable since they had applied for monopoly of use of the name through their trade mark application.
Under these circumstances, the plaintiffs were granted their prayer for ad-interim relief as recognition of the principle of law under which in case of prima facie blatant infringement upon intellectual property rights – which is covered under section 29 of the Trademarks Act, an order of injunction must be passed to protect the interest of the plaintiff and the public at large. The court recognized that any delay in such an action would result in the plaintiff suffering irreparable injury. Thus the defendants were restrained from using the ‘Campa’ trade mark or any of the artistic trademarked works such as logos, get up, colour combination, arrangement of matter on the packaging and such.
Authors: Chelsi Nanda & Suhani Sanghvi