Hindustan Unilever Ltd’s (HUL) recent move to rename and rebrand its
widely known skincare products – ‘Fair & Lovely’ to ‘Glow & Lovely’ and
‘Men’s Fair & Lovely’ to ‘Glow & Handsome’ – has now landed in the
Bombay High Court.
The FMCG major, HUL, has quite recently moved for an injunction against
Emami Ltd’s decision to initiate legal proceedings against it for Trademark
Infringement. In its petition filed, HUL had sought that it should receive
a legal notice at least seven days before Emami takes legal action. The court
has now granted the interim relief to HUL.
According to HUL, Emami’s threats of legal proceedings are completely
baseless as HUL applied for the trademark in question well before Emami.
However, Emami has now been threatening HUL after launching ‘Glow &
Handsome’ name change digitally and announcing the same one week before HUL.
In its petition filed, HUL claimed that it had applied for the Trademark
Registration of the names of women’s and men’s skincare products
with the Controller General of Patents, Designs, and Trademarks,
two years ago in September and October, respectively. However, both the trademarks
were denied on 26th July 2019.
This year, HUL again decided to rename and rebrand its skincare products
for projecting a way more inclusive idea of beauty. The company reapplied for
the same names on 17th June and 25th June 2020, respectively. According to HUL,
the announcement for the name change was made on 2nd July 2020, and the
permission to sell the products under the new name came on 3rd July 2020. In a
recent statement delivered, HUL stated that Emami is yet to launch a product
under these two names.
After hearing all the preliminary arguments, the court noted that HUL is
indeed the prior adopter of the mark as it did file the corresponding Trademark
Applications first in September 2018 and then this year on 25th
June. The court believes that the statements made by Emami do amount to a
threat; however, after hearing both the sides, the court shall soon determine
whether they are unlawful or groundless. The court has also directed Emami to
give seven days prior written notice to HUL before taking any legal action
against it. For view source: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com/blog/glow-handsome-hul-seeks-injunction-against-emami-over-trademark-allegations/
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