Violations of trademarks are not new. But it isn’t expected from companies of stature, who usually do their due diligence.
Ahana Gautam, CEO & Co-Founder, Open Secret, in a LinkedIn post has alleged that ITC is using her brand’s name on the package of their luxury chocolate brand Fabelle ‘Open Secret’.
Gautam’s post read, “Thank you ITC Limited for the imitation. A consumer sent us this picture asking how come the incumbent brand is using our name (Open Secret which is trademarked and registered) on their packaging. We believe Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Start ups are hard but this motivates us to hustle 100x harder. It’s a privilege to have the support of a million+ families on this unjunking mission. Celebrate a new India with us, and help share the message if you love the undying entrepreneurial spirit of this country.”
From the image shared by her (above), it appears that ‘Open Secret’ has been used as a sub-brand or flavour under Fabelle.
According to Santosh Vikram Singh, Fox Mandal & Associates, “Any unauthorised use (whether as a primary or secondary trademark) of a registered or prior use trademark in relation to identical and/or similar goods/services would be considered infringement.”
A senior counsel who is an expert in copyrights and trademark said that an online analysis shows that Immaculatebites (which owns Open Secret) has registered the trademark for Open Secret in 2019 while ITC’s Fabelle Open Secret was launched in 2020.
“The online analysis shows that Ahana Gautam’s claims are to be genuine. Her rights can’t be trampled by ITC, because hers is a smaller company when compared with a conglomerate company like ITC,” the counsel added on the condition of anonymity.
(Medianews4u.com has written to ITC Foods for their perspective on the issue. This story will be updated if and when a response is received.)
