The Madras High Court (Mad. HC), while dealing with the issue of whether ITC Ltd. (ITC), by selling its Butter cookies in blue packaging, similar to that being sold by Britannia Industries (Britannia), has infringed proprietary rights of the latter, has held that, the trademark & the trade dress get distinctiveness in the combination of the colour scheme & getup which gives rise to the proprietary right of the exclusive use to Britannia. Mad. HC further opined that Britannia is the prior user of the colour scheme & in the absence of any reasonable justification being provided by ITC as to why it chose to change its packaging colour from red to blue, only for Southern India, restrained ITC from selling its Butter cookies in similar trade dress.
