Calcutta High Court: In a suit filed by Dabur India Limited (‘Dabur’) to seek protection of its intellectual property rights against a YouTube video by Dhruv Rathee (Defendant) wherein references were made to ‘Real’, a product of Dabur, a Single Judge Bench of Krishna Rao, J., disposed of the suit in terms of the settlement agreed between both parties wherein it was agreed to remove all references of or use of ‘Real’ trade marks, copyright content, labels, packaging, and advertisements from the impugned video.
Background
On 14-02-2023, Dhruv Rathee uploaded a video on his YouTube channel which was contended by Dabur to be specifically aimed at denigrating and disparaging its packaged fruit products. By an order dated 29-02-2024, this Court requested the parties to consider resolving the disputes in the suit by blurring out and/or removing fruit juice packets alleged to be identical and/or deceptively similar to Dabur’s.
Dhruv Rathee, by an e-mail dated 15-03-2024, proposed to blur and/or use generic fruit juice packaging without prejudice to his rights and contentions, including inter alia, his right to freedom of speech and expression and to make a fair comment. This proposal was accepted in principle by Dabur via e-mail dated 19-03-2024.
Dhruv Rathee also forwarded a video containing the generic fruit juice packaging proposed to be used in the video in place of packaging alleged to be identical and/or deceptively similar to that of Dabur through an e-mail dated 12-06-2024.
Dabur agreed that the change must be made at all places in the impugned video so that any reference or use of ‘Real’ trademarks, copyright, content, labels, packaging, or advertisements is removed.
Analysis and Decision
The Court noted that Dhruv Rathee had agreed to make the change at all places in the impugned video to remove any reference or use of ‘Real’ as stated above and that he had no objections to the video being uploaded, published, and/or broadcast with the modifications.
Further, the Court noted that the parties agreed that keeping the suit and the related applications pending would not serve any useful purpose and disposed of the suit in terms of the settlement reached by both Dhruv Rathee and Dabur.
[Dabur India Ltd. v. Dhruv Rathee, CS-COM 474 of 2024, Order dated 18-06-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For Plaintiff — Advocate Debnath Ghosh, Advocate Biswaroop Mukherjee, Advocate Abir Debnath, Advocate Pradipta Bose
For Respondents — Sr. Advocate Ranjan Bachawat, Advocate Satyaki Mukherjee, Advocate Nakul Gandhi, Advocate Yash Vardhan Deora, Advocate Eshna Kumar, Advocate Mujeeb Rahman, Advocate Neel Mason, Advocate Phiroze Edulji, Advocate Ankit Rastogi, Advocate Roustavi Mukherjee, Advocate Priyanka Bhattacharya, Advocate Amee Rana
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