Bombay HC Temporarily Restrains Emami from using HUL's 'Glow & Handsome' Trade Mark
Moneylife Digital Team 26 August 2020
The Bombay High Court has restrained Emami Ltd from using 'Glow & Handsome' for its skin-care products. Glow & Handsome is the new trademark of Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), which the company would be using while scrapping its earlier trademark 'Fair & Lovely'. 
 
In the order, Justice SC Gupte stated, "In any action of passing off, just as the court considers proprietary interests of rival traders, the court is also essentially concerned with the likelihood of deception amongst the customers and public."
 
"HUL can certainly be said to have sufficiently advertised its new brand 'Glow & Handsome' which replaces its earlier well-known mark 'Fair & Lovely' and at this threshold stage, it is reasonable to see that there is a concrete likelihood of confusion and deception in the public, if identical marks are allowed to hold the field for popular and much sold commodities," the HC says.
 
The High Court also noted that HUL is a prior adopter and user of the mark 'Glow & Handsome' and has already launched its goods in the market with that trademark. On the other hand, Emami is admittedly at the stage of adopting 'a process of launching' its goods under the trademark 'Glow & Handsome', the bench noted.
 
Emami had also filed a case in the Calcutta High Court, but till date there is no interim injunction against HUL for using the trademark, the Bombay HC observed. Emami sells its skincare product under the brand name of ‘Fair & Handsome’. 
 
In keeping with the recent trend world over, so as to move away from the focus on the word 'fair' as part of a beauty product, HUL proposed to change its mark from 'Fair & Lovely' to 'Glow & Handsome'. On 7 September 2018, the company applied for registration of the new trademark 'Glow & Handsome' and on 2 August 2020 obtained permission from the Food and Drugs Administration (‘FDA’) to replace its trademark 'Fair & Lovely' to 'Glow & Handsome'. 
 
On 3 July 2020, HUL, through a press release, announced its proposal to use 'Glow & Handsome' as trademark replacing 'Fair & Lovely' from its skincare products. The company also submitted before the Bombay HC, sales data and expenditure incurred in promotion of its new trademark. 
 
However, on 27 July 2020, Emami announced that it will be launching skincare products under 'Glow & Handsome' trademark instead of its current ‘Fair & Handsome’. The company also claimed that on 25 June this year, it had applied for trademark registration for 'Glow & Handsome'. 
 
Sometime in June-July 2020, Emami threatened an action against HUL for its proposed use of the mark 'Glow & Handsome'. That led to HUL filing a suit under Section 142 of the Trade Marks Act in the Bombay HC.
 
In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement in the US, which led to social media calling out beauty brands for perpetrating a bias based on skin colour, in July this year, HUL had changed the name of its fairness cream brand, ‘Fair & Lovely’ to ‘Glow & Lovely’.
 
“Over the next few months, Glow & Lovely will be on the shelves, and future innovations will deliver on this new proposition. The Men's range of Fair & Lovely will be called 'Glow & Handsome',” the company had said in a release at that time.
 
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