Emami v. Dabur (Cool King): trade-dress passing-off and the composite-imitation test

The facts in brief

Emami Limited has marketed its Navratna Ayurvedic Cool Oil under a distinctive trade dress continuously since 1989. The trade dress is composed of multiple, recognisable elements arranged into a stable composite: a colour combination of red, white, yellow, and gold; a particular bottle shape and cap; visual depictions of ice cubes, hibiscus flowers, and ayurvedic herbs; and the Hindi descriptor sequence "Raahat", "Aaraam", and "Tarotaazgi" appearing in that order. The product has been sold continuously in a 270 ml fill for many years and has become one of the most widely recognised cooling hair oils in the Indian market.

In 2023, Dabur India Limited launched a new product called "Cool King Thanda Tael". The Dabur product was sold in a 270 ml bottle. Emami contended that the Cool King packaging adopted the same colour combination, similar bottle topology and cap, the same visual descriptors of ice cubes, hibiscus and ayurvedic herbs, and the identical Hindi descriptor sequence "Raahat", "Aaraam", and "Tarotaazgi" in the same order. In short, Emami's case was that the composite trade dress had been imitated in its essential features and that consumers of cooling hair oils were likely to be confused into believing that Cool King was associated with, or sourced from the same family as, Navratna.

Emami filed CS(COMM) 532/2023 in the Delhi High Court's Original Side, Commercial Division, seeking a permanent injunction in passing-off and damages, together with an interim injunction under Order XXXIX rules 1 and 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure. On 31 January 2026, Justice Tejas Karia of the Delhi High Court — sitting in single-judge jurisdiction — granted the interim injunction.

The legal question

Indian trademark law protects trade dress through the common-law remedy of passing-off, which is statutorily preserved by section 27(2) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 (the section that makes clear that the absence of registration is not a bar to the passing-off remedy). The Delhi High Court's jurisdiction in commercial trademark disputes is invoked through sections 134 and 135. The interim-injunction framework operates under Order XXXIX rules 1 and 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, requiring the plaintiff to demonstrate a prima facie case, a balance of convenience in favour of the injunction, and the likelihood of irreparable injury.

The substantive question in Emami v. Dabur was whether the Cool King packaging amounted to passing-off the Dabur product as the Emami product, viewed through the composite trade-dress lens. The defence — predictably — was that each individual element of the Navratna trade dress was either common to the cooling-hair-oil category or generic in commercial design, and that Cool King's adoption of any individual element could not constitute imitation. Emami's reply was that imitation must be assessed cumulatively: the law looks at the composite get-up, not the individual building blocks.

The doctrinal terrain ran through the Supreme Court's pronouncements in Cadila Health Care Ltd. v. Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (2001) 5 SCC 73 on the multi-factor test for deceptive similarity, and through the Delhi High Court's own line including S.S. Rana & Co. v. Tata Sons Ltd. and Christian Louboutin SAS v. Nakul Bajaj on the protection of distinctive visual identifiers. The composite-imitation approach has been the consistent thread through this case law: an assessment of essential features in totality is the correct analytical method, not a piecemeal feature-by-feature dismissal.

What the Court held

Imitation in totality, not feature by feature

The Court accepted Emami's composite-imitation framing as a matter of doctrinal method. Trade dress is a unified visual identifier; its protection cannot be defeated by disaggregation. Where the essential features of a plaintiff's trade dress have been copied in their totality, the imitation is actionable in passing-off, regardless of whether any individual feature is, on isolated analysis, generic or common.

The reasoning aligns with the Cadila Health Care multi-factor test, which considers the nature of the marks and goods, the degree of resemblance, the class of purchasers, and the surrounding circumstances together rather than as separate inquiries each requiring individual satisfaction.

The combination of features cannot be coincidental

The Court worked through the specific elements of the imitation: colour combination, visual depictions, Hindi descriptor sequence in identical order, and the identical 270 ml fill. The Court held that the convergence of so many essential features in the same combination could not be coincidental on the prima facie material before it. The inference of imitation was strong; the inference of independent design was not credible.

The reasoning is not merely evidentiary; it carries doctrinal weight. Where multiple distinctive features converge across two products in the same descriptive sequence and the same quantity, the burden in passing-off shifts to the defendant to provide a credible non-imitative account of the design choices. Dabur did not, on the material before the Court, supply such an account.

The balance of equities favours the injunction

The Court held that the balance of convenience favoured Emami. The Navratna brand has been in continuous use since 1989 with the trade dress at issue, and the visual identifiers are bound up with the consumer recognition of the product. Continued sale of Cool King in its impugned packaging during the trial would be likely to cause irreparable harm to Emami's goodwill, and the disruption of Dabur's product launch on the impugned packaging is reversible — Dabur retains the option to relaunch with a non-imitative get-up. The Court accordingly granted the interim injunction restraining Dabur from manufacturing or selling Cool King in any packaging identical or deceptively similar to the Navratna trade dress.

The 270 ml quantity and the composite case

A distinctive feature of the Court's analysis was the weight given to the identical 270 ml fill. The quantity is not, in itself, a trade-dress element in the conventional sense; cooling hair oils are sold in various pack sizes, and 270 ml is a marketable consumer fill. But the Court treated the convergence of the identical fill with the convergence of every other essential feature as part of the composite imitation. The reasoning is sound on the composite test: where every other element matches, even commercially neutral matches like fill quantity contribute to the cumulative case for imitation.

The doctrinal architecture

The judgment performs three doctrinal moves.

First, it reaffirms the composite-imitation method as the correct analytical approach in Indian trade-dress passing-off. Indian courts have, over time, encountered defendants who attempt to disaggregate the plaintiff's trade dress and argue that each individual element is generic. The Delhi High Court has consistently rejected disaggregation as a defence, and Emami v. Dabur is a clear contemporary statement of that doctrinal stance. The Court does not need to find that any single element is distinctive in isolation; it needs to find that the composite has acquired distinctiveness through use and that the defendant has imitated the composite.

Second, it operationalises the Cadila Health Care multi-factor test in the contemporary FMCG context. Cadila Health Care had been articulated in a pharmaceutical packaging dispute; Emami v. Dabur shows the test's continued application in the cooling-hair-oil consumer market, where the visual cues — colour, descriptors, bottle topology — function as the central means of product identification at the point of sale.

Third, it engages the S.S. Rana / Christian Louboutin line on non-traditional visual identifiers — colour combinations, sequence of descriptors, and visual elements arranged as a unified mark. The Delhi High Court's continued protection of composite trade dress in this register supports the broader proposition that trade dress is the natural locus of brand identity in many FMCG categories, where the verbal trademark may be supplemented or even subordinated by the non-verbal get-up.

What the judgment did not decide

The judgment is at the interim-injunction stage. It does not decide the merits of the passing-off claim on a full trial record. The Court's findings are prima facie assessments based on the affidavit-and-pleadings material; the eventual merits judgment will turn on the evidence led at trial and may engage questions of consumer perception, market context, and the secondary meaning of the Navratna trade dress with greater analytical depth.

It does not address whether the individual elements of the Navratna trade dress would, on their own, be protectable. The Court's composite framing renders the question unnecessary at this stage. If the case proceeds to trial and the elements are tested individually, the question may need to be revisited.

It does not address the position of other cooling hair oils in the Indian market that use overlapping elements. The cooling-hair-oil category includes several brands with colour and visual conventions that overlap with parts of the Navratna trade dress. The Court's reasoning is keyed to the cumulative imitation by Dabur, not to the broader question of category convention.

It does not address damages or accounts of profits. The interim injunction is the remedy at this stage; monetary relief, if any, will follow at trial or at decree.

After the judgment

Dabur filed an appeal as FAO(OS)(COMM) 23/2026 before a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court. The Division Bench, comprising Justice V. Kameswar Rao and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, upheld the interim injunction in late May 2026 — outside the strict reporting window of this digest but a relevant trajectory note. The single-judge order of 31 January 2026 accordingly remains the operative foundation of the matter pending trial.

The judgment will be cited in trade-dress passing-off disputes across FMCG categories. The composite-imitation framing is now consolidated, and defendants who seek to disaggregate plaintiffs' trade dress will need to confront the Emami v. Dabur reasoning directly. Brand-protection counsel will rely on the judgment for the proposition that the convergence of multiple distinctive elements in the same descriptor sequence shifts the analytical burden to the defendant.

For the FMCG sector, the case is a reminder that product-launch design decisions cannot rely on the assumption that individual elements are individually generic. The composite test means that adopting elements piecemeal is not a defence; the cumulative imitation triggers the passing-off remedy. Product-development and design teams will need to engage trademark and trade-dress counsel earlier in the design process, particularly for product categories where the visual identifiers function as the consumer-recognition cues.

The doctrinal contribution of Emami v. Dabur sits alongside the Delhi High Court's broader 2025–2026 line on visual brand identity, including the personality-rights and trade-dress decisions of the past year. The High Court has, through these cases, articulated a coherent protective stance toward non-traditional and composite visual marks — a stance that is responsive to the realities of consumer recognition in the contemporary Indian market.

Related on Valkya

• Christian Louboutin v. Nakul Bajaj: intermediary liability and the protection of luxury brands
• Delhi HC CMYK Printech v. Pioneer: trademark and copyright in the print sector
• Delhi HC Varun Dhawan: the contemporary personality-rights line
• Delhi HC personality-rights deepfake doctrine (2026)

Sources

1. Verdictum — "Likely to confuse consumers: Delhi HC restrains Dabur from using deceptively similar packaging to Emami Ayurvedic hair oil" (case page citing 2026:DHC:785): https://www.verdictum.in/court-updates/high-courts/delhi-high-court/emami-limited-vs-dabur-india-limited-anr-2026dhc785-1568941
2. Bar and Bench — "Delhi High Court bars Dabur from using packaging similar to Emami Navratna oil": https://www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/delhi-high-court-bars-dabur-using-packaging-similar-emami-navratna-oil
3. Cadila Health Care Ltd. v. Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd., (2001) 5 SCC 73 — multi-factor test for deceptive similarity
4. Trade Marks Act 1999 — sections 27(2), 134, 135 (passing-off jurisdiction preserved)
5. Code of Civil Procedure 1908 — Order XXXIX rules 1 and 2 (interim injunction framework)