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Our Bureau

Ahmedabad , May 16

A CIVIL Court in Ahmedabad has found no "deceptive similarity" between the eclairs wrappers of Cadbury India and ITC Ltd and dismissed a petition seeking an injunction on ITC to manufacture and sell its product.

Cadbury India had filed a petition seeking to restrain ITC from selling its brand `Candyman Choco Eclairs' claiming that the product, launched two years ago, has a wrapper that is similar to the Cadbury's éclairs that have been on the shelves for several decades.

But Mr Justice A.C. Rao of the Ahmedabad Civil Court rejected the petition as Cadbury's could not establish that there was a deceptive similarity between the two products that could lead to confusion among buyers.

Cadbury's could also not establish before the Court that they were the prior users of the gold and purple colour scheme on the wrapper.

"The Court has, however, stayed its own order up to May 23 to enable Cadbury's India to appeal against the judgment at the Gujarat High Court," the ITC counsel, Mr Sanjeev Thaker, told Business Line.

In its petition, filed on April 1, Cadbury India had claimed that the ITC product was confusing customers because the name and the wrapping of the two brands was almost similar. It had alleged that ITC had entered the market much later and was trying to take advantage of Cadbury's reputation by using a similar name and wrapper.

During the hearing, the ITC counsels had said that the "choco eclairs" was a generic name and could not be used by a company as an exclusive trademark.

They had even produced six jars of different eclairs brands in the Court in an effort to prove that they could be easily distinguished.

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