NEW DELHI: With a fight over trademark between two major whisky producers revealing that a major part of their sales is through small tetra packs in south-west India, a startled Supreme Court on Monday wondered why states are permitting such packaging of liquor.”This is very dangerous. It looks like a juice tetra pack. Imagine it falling into the hands of children? The parents and teachers won’t even suspect that tetra packs contain intoxicants,” said a concerned bench of CJI-designate Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi.The case involved Allied Blenders, which manufactures ‘Officer’s Choice’, and John Distillers, which markets its whisky under the brand name ‘Original Choice’. Appearing for John Distillers, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi said that both companies have more than Rs 30,000 crore of sales and that in Karnataka alone tetra packs account for 65% of the business.In an interesting turn to their business rivalry, both companies had approached the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) seeking rectification of trademarks used by each other. By a common order, the IPAB had dismissed both petitions saying there was nothing so similar in the trademarks as to confuse consumers. However, on Nov 7, a division bench of Madras HC ordered rectification of ‘Original Choice’ trademark for its similarities with ‘Officer’s choice’. This was challenged before SC, where bottles of various shapes and tetra packs were shown to the bench.With advocates Harish Salve, A M Singhvi and N K Kaul representing Allied Blenders pitted against Mukul Rohatgi and Shyam Divan appearing for John Distillers, the bench asked, “Despite the ferocious fighting in different forums, is there a chance of compromise?”With both parties agreeing to attempt a compromise through mediation, the bench requested retired SC judge L Nageswara Rao to act as a mediator to reach an amicable settlement over the high-spirited dispute over the label on whisky products of both companies.
