Strong collision in the glass of whiskey! Blender’s Pride vs. London Pride’s ‘pride’ battle, which side of the court? – Madhya Pradesh High Court refused to pass temporary injunction against the makers of London Pride

A Division Bench of Justices Prannoy Verma and SA Dharmadhikari observed, it can be inferred with sufficient certainty that the consumers of such products are mostly literate. They have the intelligence to distinguish between bottles of Blender’s Pride or Imperial Blue and London Pride. Even if someone has common sense, they will be able to spot the differences between competing brands. Scotch-whiskey consumers are educated and discerning. They are educated people from the rich class of society.’

Pernod Richard India and Pernod Richard USA LLC produce the whiskey brands ‘Blender’s Pride’ and ‘Imperial Blue’. Another company has been accused of stealing the logo and selling Whixie in the name of ‘London Pride’. Plaintiffs allege that London Pride is in a bottle of whizzy
A trademark similar to Blender Pride’s trademark has been used fraudulently. The packaging, getup, trade dress of London Pride’s wine bottles are all Imperial Blue. Imperial Blue is a registered Seagram trademark registered in class 33. Therefore, an application was made to the court to ban the sale of London Pride. In view of that case, the court has not agreed to issue a ban on the sale of that brand of whiskey. It is alleged that the customers are being confused due to counterfeiting of the trademark. As a result, their sales are decreasing. Customers are allegedly buying London Pride via Brivant. The court observed that those who buy such liquor are quite educated and intelligent. They know what they want to buy and what they don’t want. So there is no possibility of getting confused in this regard.