Delhi High Court: In a suit filed by Nikhil Chawla (‘plaintiff’) for its brand COOK STUDIO in the nature of threat application seeking declaration of non-infringement of the registered trademark COKE STUDIO by Coca Cola Company (‘defendant’), Prathiba M Singh, J. recorded the settlement terms arrived at between the parties through mediation and decreed the suit.
The Plaintiff is the proprietor of the firm trading as “The Chawla Group” and is stated to be running a very popular online platform called ‘COOK STUDIO’ engaged in the activity of blogging, production of video films, training, etc., particularly relating to cooking.
The Plaintiff has received notices from the Defendant who is the owner of the registered trademark named ‘COKE STUDIO’ calling upon him to desist from using the mark COOK STUDIO for his culinary related blog.
The summons was issued in the suit to the Defendant and the parties were referred to mediation before the Delhi High Court Mediation and Conciliation Centre for an amicable resolution, wherein they arrived at settlement.
A joint memo dated 12-09-2022 recorded the terms agreed between the parties as under:
“1. Plaintiff shall adopt the mark “Cook Pro 6” instead of the mark “Cook Studio” for the channels and platforms where the latter mark has been under use and shall completely transition to the mark “Cook Pro 6” and abandon the use of “Cook Studio” by 30th November, 2022.
2. Defendant shall not object to, nor otherwise interfere in any manner with the Plaintiff’s use of the mark and iterations of “Cook Pro 6” and shall also not object to or interfere with any application made by the Plaintiff for the registration of the mark “Cook Pro 6” whether in India or elsewhere.
3. The Plaintiff shall withdraw all trademark registration applications relating to “Cook Studio” and consequently withdraw the captioned suit.
4. The Defendant agrees that these terms shall only be limited to those channels/pages operated by the Plaintiff under the mark “Cook Studio” and shall not prejudice/affect the right of the Plaintiff in respect of any other product, service and/or channel or past/prior acts.
5. These terms shall have prospective effect from the date ascribed herein below.”
The Court noted the settlement terms arrived at between the parties and were found to be lawful.
Placing reliance on Nutan Batra v. Buniyaad Associates, 2018 SCC OnLine Del 12916, the Court further directed the complete Court fee to be refunded to the Plaintiff.
[Nikhil Chawla v. The Coca Cola Company, 2022 SCC OnLine Del 2861, decided on 12-09-2022]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Mr. Adarsh Ramanujan, Mr. Lzafeer Ahmad and Ms. Skanda Shekhar, Advocates, for the Plaintiff;
Mr. Naval Kartia and Mr. Akshay Bhardwaj, Advocates, for the Defendant.
*Arunima Bose, Editorial Assistant has put this report together.
