Britannia, ITC bury hatchet over cookies

A legal tussle between two behemoths of corporate India, ITC and Britannia, over allegations of copyright infringement has been resolved with the latter reworking the packaging for its digestive biscuits sold under Nutri Choice brand.

Britannia, by changing the colour combination for packaging of its Nutri Choice Digestive Zero biscuits from yellow and blue to yellow -violet, has potentially avoided any further legal battle with ITC.

Britannia's decision to change the colouring of the package, which looked deceptively similar to that of ITC's Sunfeast Farmlite Digestive All Good biscuits having the same blue and yellow combination, emanates from a interim injunction issued by the court in September where Judge S Muralidhar restrained Britannia from using that particular packaging granting the bakery major four weeks to phase out existing stock.

Interestingly, Britannia has gone ahead with changing the packaging even when the Delhi High Court recently ruled in its favour after the company filed a counter-case against the earlier order. The court in its ruling had said that ITC can't claim exclusivity over a colour combination as it is not inherently distinctive and can't be seen as a case of trademark violation.

So, while the earlier order in favour of ITC has been set aside, a company official indicated that the diversified major might not appeal against the March 10 order.

"ITC will consider filing an appeal after reviewing the order, passed by the Hon'ble High Court. We, however, understand that Britannia has already withdrawn their label against which ITC filed the suit," the ITC spokesperson told DNA Money.

A lot is riding on the packaging of 'Sunfeast Farmlite Digestive All Good' biscuits as ITC had spent a good Rs 14 crore on its advertising and the product had notched up a sales of Rs 5 crore in a short span of five months up to the time when the case was first heard at Delhi High Court.

In September, the court while ordering Britannia to take its product, the Digestive Zero variant, out of the market, had considered these figures given by ITC and that Britannia had been late in introducing its product till after six months after ITC launched its product.

The court, however, in its recent judgment considered only the issue whether the colour combination of yellow and blue had attained the distinction among the public as being exclusively related to ITC's product.