Consuming inferior quality packaged drinking water could be fatal’: Delhi High Court restrains man from selling water under ‘Taza’ brand

The high court had on November 2, 2020 passed an interim ex parte order restraining defendant Sarfaraz Khan from using the mark ‘Taza Water Plus’ or any other mark or device which may be deceptively similar to ‘Tata Water Plus’ product/packaging. While proceeding ex parte against Sarfaraz Khan, the high court also said he had chosen to deliberately stay away from the proceedings and thus Tata Sons Private Limited and its group companies will be entitled to nominal damages. (Representative/ Getty/Thinkstock) Observing that consumption of packaged drinking water of inferior quality could lead to fatalities, the Delhi High Court permanently restrained a man from selling mineral water under the name ‘Taza Water Plus’ after Tata Sons Private Ltd filed a trademark infringement lawsuit. It also directed that he pay damages of Rs 3 lakh to Tata Sons. The single-judge bench of Justice Sanjeev Narula in its March 28 order compared the defendant Sarfaraz Khan’s product with ‘Tata Water Plus’, the trademark and packaged drinking water sold by the plaintiff Tata Sons, and held that the defendant’s product packaging is a “slavish imitation of the plaintiff’s”. The court “Defendant’s infringing activities also hold grave potential for public harm as the product in question is packaged drinking water which directly ties into public health. Consumption of packaged drinking water which may be of inferior quality could lead to fatalities. Given that packaged drinking water of both parties is sold in the same trade channel, consumers may associate the defendant’s product as emanating from the plaintiff’s, leading to confusion whereas plaintiffs have no control over the quality of defendant’s product,” the high court held, adding that Khan had clearly infringed and passed off Tata’s drinking water product. The high court had on November 2, 2020 passed an interim ex parte order restraining Khan from using the mark ‘Taza Water Plus’ or any other mark or device which may be deceptively similar to ‘Tata Water Plus’ product/packaging. It noted that Khan did not appear before the court thereafter. While proceeding ex parte against Khan, the high court also said he had chosen to deliberately stay away from the proceedings and thus Tata Sons Private Limited and its group companies will be entitled to nominal damages. The court observed that Khan had used an “identical trade dress” (visual appearance) as that of ‘Tata Water Plus’ which included brown and blue strips and the words mentioned therein and their font size and style. “The only visible change is that the third-letter ‘T’ in ‘TATA’ has been replaced by ‘Z’ in ‘TAZA’. Further, the plaintiffs’ product label, which features a splash of water as a device next to the word ‘Plus’, has been slavishly copied in the form of a heart-shaped splash of water which is also placed identically as plaintiff’s device,” the court observed.

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