Oreo vs Fabio: Delhi HC stops Parle's biscuit sales. What's the case?

The Delhi High Court on Friday restrained Parle Products Pvt. Ltd. from selling its vanilla cream-filled chocolate biscuits Fabio/Fab!o because of its "resemblance and deceptive similarity" to Oreo biscuit.

Passing the order on a suit filed by Intercontinental Great Brands, which has proprietary of the Oreo brand of biscuits, a single bench of Justice C Hari Shankar said the two marks are phonetically similar.

"A consumer of average intelligence and imperfect recollection who has earlier purchased and had the Oreo cookie would, when he sees the Fab!o cookie pack, be clearly likely to associate the Fab!o cookie with the Oreo cookie that he had earlier enjoyed," he held.

The order concluded that Parle had infringed on the registered trademarks by passing off its Fab!o brand of cookies and issued an interim injunction prohibiting Parle from using the mark until the suit was resolved. However, the court rejected the contention of Oreo that the design of the two cookies are also similar. ALSO READ: Delhi HC directs Centre to respond on pendency of NIA cases in special courts

What exactly is the point of contention?

1. The complaint alleged that, prior to 2020, Parle was using the brands Fab and Fab!o for its biscuits. After 2020, the defendant introduced cream-filled chocolate sandwich biscuits under the mark ―Fab!o only for cream-filled chocolate sandwich biscuits which were identical to Oreo. The allegation is that the mark on the defendant‘s biscuit, though written Fab!o is bound to be pronounced Fabio, 'deceptively similar to Oreo mark’.

2. Parle contended that only one letter O in Fab!o is common, it is otherwise structurally, visually, and phonetically distinct from the Oreo mark. It also claimed that the embossing on the surface is not the same.