A neighbourhood bakery in Bangalore — Happy Belly Bakes — has won a long drawn trademark dispute with Amazon in India after a civil court in Bangalore issued an order barring the latter from using the label “Happy Belly” and to remove products of a similar label from the e-commerce giant’s online platform in India.
Shisham Hinduja, director of Happy Belly Bakes, which sells cakes, brownies, cookies and other baked products besides operating food cafes and catering services, started the business of chocolate making in 2008 under the name “Regalar”.
As the business expanded, Hinduja coined and adopted the name “Happy Belly Bakes” in 2010. She is also the owner of the registered trademark “Happy Belly Bakes”.
During the 2017 festive season, Hinduja started receiving calls from its clients asking if she had begun selling her products on Amazon — which was not the case. Amazon also has a global private level brand Happy Belly under which it sells bakery items, dairy and snacks.
In 2016, it filed for a trademark “Happy Belly” through Delaware-based Tootsie LLC, but was unsuccessful. This prompted Hinduja to file a lawsuit against Amazon Seller Services, Cloudtail India and Tootsie LLC and on August 30, after more than four years in court, a judgment was pronounced in Hinduja’s favour.
The ruling from additional city civil and sessions judge Padma Prasad said that defendants Cloudtail India and Tootsie LLC are permanently restrained from infringing or passing off the plaintiff’s (Hinduja) trademark “Happy Belly Bakes” under the mark/ name/label “Happy Belly” or with a name which is both visually and phonetically, deceptively similar for their business of manufacturing, selling, marketing, distributing and in any manner trading with products, goods or services.
Amazon Seller Services was also directed to remove any products which are deceptively similar to the plaintiff’s trademark from its online platform in India.
According to the ruling, Amazon even claimed in court that Happy Belly Bakes lacked goodwill and reputation. But the court rejected this and observed that the “contention shows the arrogance of defendants”.
“The law of Trademarks has prevailed,” Hinduja said after the order was pronounced.
A query sent by The Telegraph to Amazon India remained unanswered at the time of publishing.
The development comes at a time globally Amazon is under the radar for engaging in anti-competitive practices.
In a recent instance, on September 14, 2022, California attorney-general Rob Bonta announced a lawsuit against the e-commerce firm and in a statement observed that Amazon had engaged in practices that stifled competition and caused price increases throughout California.
In India, too, it is on the radar of the Competition Commission of India.
In April this year, Reuters reported that Cloudtail and another Amazon seller Appario were raided by the CCI on accusations of violation of competition law.
