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The Delhi high court dismissed an interim application by the International Cricket Council seeking to restrain Britannia Industries and its authorised departmental stores from using the logo, mark and mascot of the 2003 World Cup in their promotional schemes.
ICC Development International Ltd (ICCDIL), a company formed by the ICC to control its commercial rights, including media and sponsorship rights relating to ICC events, had alleged that Britannia and its authorised departmental stores were misrepresenting their association with them by using the World Cup logo and other marks etc on their promotional material without permission.
The ICC-held company accused the Indian biscuit manufacturer of resorting to ambush marketing to take advantage of the World Cup without investing a single rupee.
The ICCDIL alleged that the scheme "Britannia Khao World Cup Jao" amounts to an act of unfair trade practice in addition to depriving the authorised sponsors to enjoy the exclusivity granted to them by the ICC's company.
"Neither the plea of ambush marketing is available to the plaintiff (ICCDIL) nor any of aforesaid decisions has any
applicability of the facts of this case. Plaintiff, thus, must be held to have prima facie not even made case for issue of the ad interim injunction prayed for," Justice K S Gupta said.
"Balance of convenience also does not lie in its (ICCDIL) favour nor can it be said that it would suffer irreparable injury in case the interim injunction is declined," the court said.
Britannia rejected the allegations of ICCDIL, contending that the ICC-held company has not placed on record any documents of exclusivity and failed to disclose that the ICC has granted rights to various parties including Lintas India Pvt Ltd as exclusive licensing agent for the ICC World Cup 2003 for the Indian subcontinent.
Stating that Britannia has been sub-licensed the rights to use the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003 logos etc by Lintas, its counsel submitted that the slogan "Britannia Khao World Cup Jao" is their property as it was also used for the 1999 cricket World Cup.
In its rejoinder, ICCDIL submitted that at the time of filing the suit, the company was not aware of any arrangement between Lintas, the licensing agent for them and Britannia.
Dismissing the ICC-held company's application, the court noted that Britannia had specifically averred that United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCBSA) had appointed Edusport Gullinjet Travel (EGT) as an official agent and the sole official tour operator with rights to sub-license the travel license.
Justice Gupta said ICCDIL had not contested the claim that EGT had appointed Sachinam Travels Pvt Ltd to act as official travel agent and the latter had undertaken to arrange tickets for 200 persons as guests of Britannia for various matches in the World Cup.
Thus, the claim made by Britannia would be taken to have been admitted by the ICCDIL, the court said, adding from the agreements and rights documents contents it was evident that the defendant (Britannia) had acquired the right to use black and white stripes and even the mascot on the packing of biscuits manufactured by it.