Parle drags Walmart India to Court over trademark infringement

In a rare instance of a domestic company suing a multi-national company for trademark violation, Parle Agro has pursued legal action against Walmart India. Parle has alleged that Walmart India ‘deceptively’ packaged and sold an apple-flavoured drink similar to its trademarked drink Appy Fizz.

Walmart has branded the drink as ‘Fizzy Apple’. Parle Agro, in its petition with the Bombay High Court has alleged that Walmart was “manufacturing, marketing, selling and promoting” the product “using identical font, style and colour scheme” as Parle’s Appy Fizz.

Representing Parle Agro, advocate Hiren Kamod told the court the “mark, shape, colour scheme and label … the entire trade dress of the defendants impugned product is identical to the plaintiff’s product.” He added that these attempts proved that it was “obvious” Walmart was trying to “sail as close to the wind as possible”.

Parle contended that after it launched Appy Fizz in 2005, Parle dominates the sparkling apple juice segment with over 90% market share. Kamod stated that the defendants are thus “seeking to ride the reputation and goodwill” generated by Parle’s product to make “wrongful gains.”

On Walmart India’s part, advocate Abhishek Malhotra from TMT Law Practise told the court that ‘Fizzy’ was a common descriptive word which no one can claim monopoly over.

The case was heard by Justice BP Colabawalla who, in an interim order, has directed Walmart India to stop retailing the product in question till further order. The next hearing is on August 20.