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Whether the Coca-Cola and Bisleri spat is buried forever or some fizz still remains is difficult to guess, but a clear lesson is that companies need to guard their intellectual property rights carefully.

It all started when Bisleri’s chairman Ramesh Chauhan came to know that Coca-Cola was trying to register the Maaza trademark in countries other than India. Chauhan had sold Maaza to Coca-Cola in 1993 along with his other brands like Thums Up, Goldspot and Limca from his stable. Subsequently, the companies had signed an agreement over the ownership of the Maaza trademark in India.

However, Chauhan says that he had sold the rights of Maaza only for India. “We have asked Coca-Cola to pay us compensation of $5 million and give us in writing that they would not register our trademark anywhere in the world,” he told FE. Coca-Cola had made attempts in the past to register the Maaza trademark in Holland and Turkey, but had subsequently withdrawn its applications.

On the other hand, Coca-Cola says that it never signed a non-competing agreement that could have prevented it from registering the trademark elsewhere. “Though the Chauhans have not entered into a non-compete agreement with Coca-Cola, restraining us from unbridled expansion, we have decided to not register the trademark outside India. We are not registering for moral reasons because he doesn’t want us to register outside,” said the Coca-Cola spokesperson. He added, “The issue is over. We have sent a written statement to Coca-Cola stating that we will not register Maaza trademark in other countries.”

However, this is not the sole case of IPR infringement that has hit corporate India. In another instance, French food company Danone and Indian confectionary major Britannia got into a rough patch over Tiger brand, which is a product of confectionary major Britannia.

Danone has a 25.5% indirect stake through a holding company Associated Biscuits International Holdings (ABIH) in it. The Wadia group and Danone have an equal stake in ABIH. The Wadias accused Danone of registering Tiger brand on its own in over 70 countries without the knowledge of the management board. Britannia filed a court case against Danone in Singapore in May 2007 and there has been no breakthrough on the issue yet.