Delhi High Court Grants Britannia Permission To Sell Its Nutri Choice Zero Digestive Biscuits After Months In Court

After months of going back and forth, the Delhi High Court has granted Britannia permission to sell their NutriChoice Zero Digestive biscuits, after the injunction order issued by ITC because of the same packaging design.

“It is only when it is established, may be even prima facie, that the colour combination has become distinctive of a person’s product that an order may be made in his favour. We feel that present is not such a case. For the foregoing reasons, we are of the view that ITC was not entitled to an interim injunction and, therefore, the impugned order is set aside,” the judgement stated.

In August last year, ITC had issued the injunction which then had both brands spending time in court dealing with the matter. But as per the judgement, it is clear that despite ITC’s problems with the similar packaging, the Delhi High Court finds that this is something that cannot be held back.

In response to the judgement, an ITC spokesperson commented: “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 We, however, understand that Britannia has already withdrawn their label against which ITC filed the suit.”

While the similarities between Britannia’s Nutri Choice Digestive Zero and ITC’s Sunfeast Famlite Digestive All Good biscuits were similar and the court had ruled as such, the final decision still rested with the courts. Initially, Britannia was asked to withdraw its Nutri Choice Digestive Zero biscuits from shelves till the matter was resolved.

Following this, Britannia had filed a countersuit in September contending that the colour ‘blue’ was being used to depict sugarless or zero sugar in the food and not that it was a copy of the brand packaging. In fact, Britannia has been using the similar packaging for other products within its range.