Trade Marks Act

Section 124 (5)
Passing off action - Brands IMPERIAL BLUE and ROYAL STAG .

Defendants adopting the trademark IMPERIAL GOLD but concisely using the trade dress, get up, colour combination and label of ROYAL STAG, thus committing acts of infringement of trademark and passing off.
HELD The word 'IMPERIAL" may be generic if used by a member of the royal family, but certainly it will be arbitrary when applied to a whisky and that too, a whisky other than Scotch, and furthermore a whisky in the lower price segment.
Even a seasoned consumer is liable to be misled by the IMPERIAL GOLD label and the overall trade dress of the bottle of the defendants including its shape into believing that the plaintiffs group, which is engaged in the sale of IMPERIAL BLUE whisky for more than a decade, has launched IMPERIAL GOLD with a trade dress similar to the plaintiffs ROYAL STAG whisky Section 124 (5) of Trade Marks Act empowers the Court to grant interim injunction in appropriate cases even if rectification/cancellation proceedings are pending.
Dishonest adoption of the mark and trade dress of the plaintiff's product by the defendants cannot be permitted.
In the larger interest of the consumer of the product, defendants restrained from passing off.