Delhi High Court Restrains Parle From Using FAB!O Mark After OREO Alleges Trademark Infringement

The Delhi High Court on Friday passed an interim order injuncting Parle from using the mark FABIO or FAB!O till the disposal of the suit.

The order was passed on a suit filed by Intercontinental Great Brands owner and proprietor of the OREO brand of biscuits alleging that Parle’s FABIO and FAB!O infringed its trademark.

The Court noted that there is no other biscuit with a similar sounding name with a concluding ‘eo’ sound and therefore when another identical product enters the market with the same concluding sound and similar packaging, there is the likelihood of a customer who had the ‘OREO’ biscuit earlier, presuming its connection with ‘FAB!O’.

After considering the arguments as well as the packaging and the biscuits contained therein, the Court said that the ’!‘ in ‘FAB!O’ is merely an ‘I‘ in disguise and that the two marks are phonetically similar.

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Justice Hari Shankar said that by adding an ‘O’ to its earlier ‘FAB!’ mark, the defendant has made the concluding ‘io’ intonation in its ‘FAB!O’ mark identical to the concluding ‘eo’ intonation in the plaintiff‘s ‘OREO’ mark.

He said that the manner in which the defendant has, in its advertisements, declared that its ‘FAB!O’ mark is required to be pronounced as ‘fab-ee-yo’ amounts to a candid acknowledgment that ‘FAB!O’ is required to be pronounced like ‘OREO’, which would be pronounced ‘or-ee-yo’.

However, Justice Hari Shankar rejected the argument that the design of the two cookies is also similar.