AVEDA CORPORATION Vs. DABUR INDIA LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) "Aveda" and "Uveda" the two marks are subject matters of consideration under present application. "Aveda" is the trademark of plaintiff for which plaintiff is having a registration certificate showing registration in the name of plaintiff since 1986 for hair care, skin care and other beauty products. The name of plaintiff itself is "Aveda Corporation". The defendant has adopted a mark "Uveda" for its skin care and beauty products recently.

(2.) The contention of plaintiff is that plaintiff had popularized this trademark throughout the word by spending considerable amount on promotional activities/advertisements. In the year 2008-09 itself, an amount in excess of 50 + million dollars was spent on promotion of goods worldwide by the plaintiff. Defendant introduced fairness cream, face wash and moisturizer under the mark "Uveda" in August, 2009. The mark "Uveda" adopted by defendant was phonetically similar to the plaintiff's mark. It was being used by the defendant for similar products and the mark was deceptively similar to that of the plaintiff. The defendant though a well known company was trying to take advantage of the reputation of the plaintiff. The defendant was prominently using the word "Uveda" on its products and was also guilty of passing off its goods as those of the plaintiff since the ordinary consumer with an imperfect recollection was bound to get confused between the two words "Aveda" & "Uveda". This application for interim injunction has been made for restraining defendant from using the word "Uveda" during pendency of the case.

(3.) The defendant accepted notice of the application and argued the matter. It is submitted by the defendant that the plaintiff had no sales in India and the mark of the plaintiff "Aveda" was not known in India. Plaintiff was admittedly supplying its beauty products in India to only one Spa in Rishikesh and its products were not available at any shop in the market anywhere in India. There was no question of same consumer getting confused since the products of the plaintiff were not even available in India for sale. The other ground taken is that the plaintiff was catering to a very high end limited market the cost of 50 ml packing of the plaintiff's product was more than Rs.300/- whereas the cost of 30 gm packing of defendant's product was Rs.95/-. The packaging of the defendant was altogether different from that of the plaintiff and in order to fortify this point samples of defendant's cream and the plaintiff's cream were brought to the Court. The plaintiff packaging was small in size in blue colour while the carton of the defendant's product was in red and orange/saffron colours and bigger in size. It was also stated that the style of writing "Uveda" and "Aveda" was also different and there was no reason for confusion of the customer and there was no chance of passing off the goods of the defendant as that of the plaintiff since "Dabur" was prominently written over the word "Uveda". The get up and mode of writing was also altogether different.