While the single-judge had held that the words ‘Dil’ and ‘Rooh’ would not cause confusion and that sharbat lovers would be able to distinguish between the two products, the Division Bench concluded that the two trademarks have certain phonetic similarities which can confuse customers.
After examining the packaging of the two products, the Division Bench said that there is a similarity in their trade dress because both have the same deep red colour and texture, and even the structure of the bottle was similar.
“The impression of the label is also somewhat similar in view of the colour used. The ROOH AFZA label uses colourful flowers, leaving an oval space for the mark to be depicted; and the label DIL AFZA uses has colourful fruits on the boundaries, leaving an oval patch on which the trademark ‘DIL AFZA’ is written. Both the competing labels can be described as busy considering the number of images captured therein. The overall impression of the trade dress is quite similar.”
Source: Barandbench
