{"id":251238,"date":"2021-07-14T15:00:44","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T09:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/?p=251238"},"modified":"2021-07-14T17:38:32","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T12:08:32","slug":"amul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2021\/07\/14\/amul\/","title":{"rendered":"Amul Dairy secures major win in a trademark infringement case in Federal Court of Canada\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Federal Court of Ontario<\/strong> (Canada): <\/strong>In an Intellectual Property battle the Bench of Alan S. Diner,\u00a0 J., had granted major win to India\u2019s giant dairy producer, Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers\u2019 Union Ltd. (Kaira), i.e. AMUL Dairy and Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. The Bench held that,<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Defendants\u2019 conduct had exceeded the usual case of confusion caused by slight alterations of the mark, similar description of copyrighted material, or modification of a design, rather, they were using, without any colour of right, an exact duplicate of the Plaintiffs\u2019 mark, and an exact copy of their copyrighted material.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Plaintiff alleged that Defendant-AMUL Canada had been advertising, marketing, offering for sale, selling, and providing goods identical to the Plaintiffs\u2019 goods in Canada with the trademarks and trade names AMUL and Amul Canada Ltd. through LinkedIn. Further, it was alleged that the Defendants, namely AMUL Canada, Mr Mohit Rana, Mr Akash Ghosh, Mr Chandu Das, and Mr Patel were not only using the exact marks and designs belonging to the Plaintiffs, but they were claiming to be the Plaintiffs, through copying the information available on the AMUL websites regarding the Plaintiffs\u2019 background and activities. Defendant also purported to have employees in Canada even though the Plaintiffs had never licensed nor provided consent for either Amul Canada or any of the four individual Defendants to use the Plaintiffs\u2019 trademarks and copyrights in any manner.<\/p>\n

The Kaira was established in India in 1946, in the business of the manufacture and marketing of milk products. Its trademark AMUL is India\u2019s largest food brand and a \u201cwell-known trademark\u201d in India. The Plaintiffs deposed that Gujarat and Kaira had offered for sale, advertised, sold, and distributed certain AMUL trademarked goods in Canada since 2010. Specifically, Kaira was the registered owner of the Canadian Trademark \u201cAMUL\u201d since 2014, which had been used in Canada since 30-06-2020. Plaintiff also owned the Canadian trademark design having the expression \u201cAmul the Taste of India\u201d,<\/em><\/strong> which had been used in Canada, in association with the goods \u201ccoffee, tea, cocoa, coffee substitutes, sugar, milk etc. Similarly, Kaira also owned the mark and design having the expression \u201cAmul Pasturized Butter utterly butterly delicious\u201d,<\/em><\/strong> used in association with the dairy products, edible oils and fats. Finally, the Plaintiffs owned copyright in the designs associated with these trademarks.<\/p>\n

Motion for Default Judgment <\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Noticing the evasive conduct of the Defendants and that the Plaintiffs had exhausted all reasonable attempts to had the Defendants cease and desist their conduct both prior to and through the commencement of these proceedings, the Bench held that the Plaintiffs had every right to bring the Motion for Default Judgment in ex parte <\/em>manner to stop the blatant abuse of their intellectual property.<\/p>\n

Passing Off under section 7(b) of the Trademarks Act<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Passing off has been statutorily codified in section 7(b) of the Trademarks Act, RSC 1985, c T-13 [Trademarks Act<\/em>]. The elements for establishing passing off are: <\/em><\/p>\n