Threshold Of 'Deceptive Similarity' Is Lower For Food Products: Delhi HC Directs Swiggy, Zomato To Delist Restaurants Infringing Domino's Trademark

The Delhi High Court has restrained fifteen entities from infringing the trademark of famous pizza chain Domino's or its erstwhile trade name Dominick's Pizza, by using deceptively similar marks.In doing so, Justice Saurabh Banerjee observed that in disputes involving edible products, the threshold for establishing deceptive similarity is lower than that applied in other cases.“In essence, any confusion between such products, if allowed to continue, can lead to disastrous consequences on human health. Therefore, this Court has to adopt a more cautious and stringent approach for judging the likelihood of confusion and to exercise greater care,” the bench observed.The Court also directed online food aggregators Swiggy and Zomato to delist/ suspend the respondent entities from their platforms.Significant to note that DOMINO'S was founded in the year 1960 in the US and Jubilant Food Works Limited has exclusive rights to operate Domino's franchises in India. Dominos LLC also asserted their rights over the mark “DOMINICK”, as it was previously adopted by them.The company sought to restrain the use of trade names “Domnic's”, “Dominic”, “Dominic's”, “Domnik”, “Daminic”, “Daminic's”, which are deceptively similar and phonetically identical, to its erstwhile trade name.Upon perusing the tradenames, the High Court agreed that prima facie, the marks of the defendants are deceptively similar and phonetically identical to the Plaintiff's erstwhile trade name “Dominick's Pizza”. “The defendants have either wholly copied the plaintiffs' mark or have just removed the letter 'K' from the plaintiffs' mark 'Dominick', and have minor alterations such as addition or subtraction of the letter 'i', or 's', or replacement of the letter 'o' with 'a', so as to come close to plaintiffs' trademarks and ride on their goodwill,” it observed.The Court also found the said marks to be deceptively similar to Plaintiffs' presently registered mark and held that consumers of average intelligence and imperfect recollection are likely to associate the defendants' product with that of the plaintiffs'.As such, the Court issued an interim injunction and issued summons on the main suit.Appearance: Mr. Shantanu Sahay, Ms. Imon Roy and Ms. Vareesha Irfan, Advs. for Plaintiff; Mr. Abhay Pratap Singh, Ms. Mitali Umat, Advs. for D-17.Case title: Dominos IP Holder LLC & Anr. v. M/S. Domnics Pizza & Ors.Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 702Case no.: CS(COMM) 317/2025 Click here to read order

Threshold Of 'Deceptive Similarity' Is Lower For Food Products: Delhi HC Directs Swiggy, Zomato To Delist Restaurants Infringing Domino's Trademark

Kapil Dhyani

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