Supreme Court Refuses To Interfere With Bombay HC Order Protecting 'GERMINATOR' Trade Dress

The Supreme Court recently (May 4) dismissed a Special Leave Petition filed by Anannya Agro Products challenging a Bombay High Court order granting interim injunction in favour of Dr. Bawaskar Technology (Agro) Pvt. Ltd. in a trademark and trade dress dispute concerning the mark “GERMINATOR”.

A bench of Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice Vijay Bishnoi found no error in the High Court's March 16 order, stating: “We find no error, not to speak of any error of law said to have been committed by the High Court in passing the impugned order.”

The court clarified that the trial suit shall proceed expeditiously “without being influenced in any manner by any of the observations made by the High Court in its impugned order.”

The Supreme Court's dismissal follows a Bombay High Court ruling by Justices R.I. Chagla and Advait M. Sethna allowing Dr. Bawaskar Technology's appeal against a Pune Commercial Court order refusing an interim injunction.

The High Court had relied on the “Safe Distance Rule” while observing that minor unilateral changes to packaging may not cure consumer confusion once infringing trade dress has been adopted.

The Division Bench referred to precedents observing that confusion caused by infringing trade dress is not “magically remedied by de minimis fixes” and noted that permitting repeated unilateral packaging changes could result in endless litigation.

At the heart of the dispute was the mark “GERMINATOR”, which Dr. Bawaskar Technology claimed to have used since 1981 for an agricultural formulation that became widely recognised among farmers.

After allegedly discovering in February 2025 that Anannya Agro Products was using a similar mark and near-identical trade dress, the company filed a suit alleging trademark infringement, passing off and copyright infringement.

Anannya Agro Products had argued before the High Court that “GERMINATOR” was a descriptive dictionary word referring to a product used in the germination process and could not be monopolised. The Pune Commercial Court had accepted this position and declined interim relief, independently declaring the mark generic.

The High Court found this approach erroneous, holding that the Commercial Court had no basis to declare the mark generic without any supporting pleadings from the parties.

The High Court also prima facie found that Dr. Bawaskar Technology had established substantial goodwill and consumer association with the mark “GERMINATOR”.