AHMEDABAD: Famous restaurant chain Honest Reveira has taken exception to a Goa meat delivery company, Honesty Foods, alleging that similarity in their names and labels causes confusion among its pure vegetarian customers, insinuating that it has opened a new branch in the coastal state serving non-vegetarian food. The court issued notice to Honesty Foods, and further hearing is now posted on June 8.Honest Reveira has argued that since it deals in vegetarian food and its customer base is Hindus and Jains, any confusion regarding its possible foray into non-vegetarian food might harm its goodwill and reputation, as it is set to lose the trust of its customers. Honesty Foods is in the business of raw and frozen meat, beef, pork and vegetable delivery.The Ahmedabad-based restaurant chain has sued Honesty Foods in local commercial court, seeking to stop the latter from using the ‘Honesty’ brand, alleging infringement of its trademark rights, as it has been using the trademark and label since 1976 and is now registered in multiple classes under the Trade Marks Act, 1999, and that it also holds copyright registration for its label artwork featuring an oval device and a red-and-yellow colour scheme. It claimed extensive domestic and overseas presence through franchises and licensed users.The restaurant chain accused Honesty Foods, with addresses in North Goa, Pune, etc., of using its name and label in a manner “deceptively similar” to the “Honest” mark. However, the key allegation remained that of reputational harm. Honest’s counsel Zahid Shaikh submitted that his client received various queries from its customers whether it has begun dealing in non-vegetarian food. They are in confusion whether Honest has opened a new branch for non-veg offerings.The suit petition reads, “The plaintiffs state that they are exclusively engaged in the preparation and sale of purely vegetarian food. Their customer base predominantly comprises members of the Hindu and Jain communities, who patronise the Plaintiffs solely for their reputation of serving high-quality vegetarian food. The association of the plaintiffs’ name with non-vegetarian products sold by the defendant has caused serious dissatisfaction and emotional distress among such customers, including hurt to their religious sentiments. This confusion not only misleads the public at large but also causes irreparable harm to the goodwill and reputation of the plaintiffs, resulting in loss of trust and diversion of customers away from the plaintiffs’ business.”On its demand to stop Honesty Foods from using the name and to take down from online platforms, Judge H G Pandya at the city civil court said, “The plaintiff’s device mark is having a dominant feature of word ‘Honest’ whereas the defendant is running a business with the trademark name ‘Honesty Foods’. It is trite to note that honesty word is pertaining to quality, value and is attached to morality. Considering both device marks, this court is of the view that before passing any ad-interim injunction, the defendant is also required to be heard.”
