The Case
Pepsico recently won the battle for usage of its brand " Mountain Dew " in Hyderabad High Court against rivals Magfast Beverages. Here are the case highlights in brief :-
- Magfast Started Packaged Drinking Water in the name of "Mountain Dew"
- Pepsi owns this, henced filed a case against them
- First round, magfast wins as Pepsi hasn't filed it for Packaged Drinking Water
- Pepsi didn't agree, went to High Court.
- High court gives a decision to let Pepsico use it exclusively & Magfast can't use.
Let's see the major reason ground & discuss on that :-
Court says that Pepsi has registered that in India, in 1985, which Magfast says that they were not aware.
- Can it be ? I doubt. It could have been carelessness. Or over confidence.
- Or can be sincere attempt. Pepsi doent make water under Mountain Dew Tradename. Packaged Drinking Water Business started booming from 2003 onwards. Till then there was no category as well in the said class.
Though products are different, still belong to same category as they are sold on the same counter
This is partially true. However, if Magfast was into 20 Ltr Jars only; story could have been different. But yes, Beverages market segment is same.
You can find a Video Case Study on this here
