By Lucy Rana and Huda Jafri
INTRODUCTION
Trademark enforcement in India is often framed as a binary choice: either sue every infringer or tolerate the dilution of a mark. In practice, established brand owners treat enforcement as a spectrum of tools, running from consumer education and cease and desist notices at one end to urgent civil litigation, ex parte injunctions and court supervised search and seizure at the other. Which tool is used, and when, is a strategic decision, not an automatic response to imitation.
In markets characterised by high levels of imitation, particularly within the fast moving consumer goods sector, trademark owners rarely pursue every instance of infringing use, even where similarities in packaging, colour schemes or trade dress appear substantial. This approach does not indicate weak enforcement, but rather reflects practical constraints relating to cost, evidentiary burdens and the need for effective market level deterrence.
Modern trademark protection therefore operates as a multi layered system combining legal remedies, administrative action and consumer facing interventions. The objective is not only to address infringement after it occurs, but also to reduce the conditions that enable confusion in the marketplace.
Within this framework, brands such as Bisleri show that both ends of the spectrum are live options, not sequential defaults. Dispersed, low value imitation is generally met with monitoring, consumer education and cease and desist notices, while deliberate, evidentially strong infringement, particularly where it combines trademark, trade dress and copyright violations or touches consumer safety, is met with immediate and comprehensive litigation. Enforcement decisions are guided by commercial significance, evidentiary strength and the nature of the harm, not by a fixed preference for or against litigation.
BISLERI AND THE FMCG ENFORCEMENT CONTEXT
Bisleri International Pvt. Ltd. operates in a market segment where imitation is structurally common due to product standardisation and heavy reliance on visual identification at the point of sale.
The brand’s identity is closely associated with its distinctive blue and white packaging, bottle design, seal configuration and label layout. In such markets, trade dress functions as the primary source identifier.
Counterfeiting in packaged drinking water also raises additional concerns, including potential public health risks arising from improper filling, sealing or manufacturing practices.
Despite widespread imitation risks, enforcement is not pursued uniformly against every infringing actor. Instead, enforcement is structured around prioritisation and practical feasibility, and Bisleri has, on different occasions, relied on both restraint and full scale litigation depending on how a given case measures up against those considerations.
THE ENFORCEMENT PYRAMID: PRACTICAL STRUCTURE OF TRADEMARK ENFORCEMENT
Trademark enforcement in practice operates through a layered structure often described as an enforcement pyramid, reflecting increasing intensity of intervention based on the scale of infringement.
-
Market Monitoring and Consumer Awareness
At the foundational level, brand owners engage in continuous monitoring of markets and distribution networks. This includes:
- field intelligence and distributor reporting
- online surveillance of listings and advertisements
- identification of counterfeit clusters
- consumer awareness initiatives
Consumer education plays an important role in reducing confusion by reinforcing recognition of authentic product features. This form of communication supports brand distinctiveness and indirectly reduces infringement opportunities.
-
Cease and Desist Mechanism
The first formal enforcement step is typically a cease and desist notice. This serves to:
- formally notify the infringer
- create a record of objection
- resolve low scale disputes without litigation
- strengthen future legal claims if infringement continues
This mechanism is widely used in practice for dispersed and low value infringement cases.
-
Criminal and Administrative Enforcement
Where infringement is organised or large scale, enforcement may involve criminal provisions under the Trade Marks Act, 1999, along with police assistance for raids and seizures. Such actions typically target:
- manufacturing units
- packaging operations
- distribution hubs
This approach is particularly effective because addressing upstream actors can eliminate multiple downstream infringers at once.
-
Strategic Civil Litigation
Civil litigation is generally reserved for:
- commercially significant infringers
- repeat offenders
- organised market participants
Reliefs typically include injunctions, damages, delivery up and destruction of infringing goods. Interim relief such as ex parte injunctions is often sought in urgent cases. In practice, such litigation functions not only as dispute resolution but also as a deterrent mechanism when publicised.
THE BISLIE LITIGATION: STRATEGIC CIVIL ENFORCEMENT IN PRACTICE
The Bombay High Court order in Bisleri International Private Limited v. Belaguli Mahalingegowda Kirankumar[1], delivered on 7 August 2026, shows the litigation end of the enforcement spectrum in operation. It illustrates that, where the facts warrant it, Bisleri moves quickly and comprehensively, seeking not only an injunction but also court supervised search and seizure.
During a routine market search in Channarayapattana, Karnataka, in the last week of May 2026, Bisleri’s investigators traced a manufacturing unit producing and marketing packaged drinking water under the mark “Bislie”. The mark had been formed by deleting the sixth letter, “r”, from “Bisleri” and transposing the fifth and seventh letters, “e” and “i”. On the Court’s own comparison, the resulting label, artwork, colour scheme and get up were deceptively and substantially similar to Bisleri’s registered trademarks and to the original artistic work on its labels.
The plaintiff’s product and the defendant’s “Bislie” product, as compared in the judgment.
Bisleri obtained an ex parte ad interim injunction on 11 June 2026, restraining the defendant from manufacturing, distributing or selling goods under the “Bislie” mark or any deceptively similar mark, label or trade dress, and appointing a Court Receiver empowered to search the defendant’s premises, seize infringing stock and packaging material, and, if necessary, break open locks with police assistance. That order was executed and a raid was carried out. The defendant, though served, did not appear or file a reply at any stage of the proceedings.
On 7 August 2026, having heard only the plaintiff since the defendant remained absent despite service, the Court confirmed the ad interim relief. It held that the case for infringement was made out prima facie: the substitution of a single letter and transposition of two others did not detract from the deceptive similarity between “Bislie” and “Bisleri”, and the defendant’s artwork, trade dress and bottle design were substantially similar to Bisleri’s registered trademarks and copyrighted label artwork. The Court noted that Bisleri held registered copyright in its label artwork under the Copyright Act, 1957, in addition to a large portfolio of registered trademarks covering the word mark, packaging and bottle shape in classes 32 and 39.
The Leave Petition under Clause XIV of the Letters Patent (Bombay) Act was allowed, the interim application was made absolute, and the Court Receiver’s report on the search and seizure exercise was disposed of. The result is a confirmed interim injunction restraining manufacture, sale or distribution of the “Bislie” mark, the impugned artwork and trade dress, and the bottle design, together with the seizure of infringing stock, packaging material, printing blocks and production registers found at the defendant’s premises.
The Bislie order is a useful counterpoint to the selective enforcement described above. The defendant was a single manufacturing unit in a regional town, not an organised, national counterfeiting network of the kind the enforcement pyramid typically reserves for civil litigation. Yet Bisleri chose to sue, and to seek the most intensive relief available: an ex parte injunction combined with search and seizure. Two factors appear to have driven that choice. First, the infringement combined trademark, trade dress and copyright violations in a single product, giving Bisleri a strong prima facie case across multiple causes of action. Second, packaged drinking water is a category where unauthorised manufacturing carries public health risk, which sharpens the urgency of intervention regardless of the infringer’s size. Read together with the enforcement pyramid, the Bislie litigation shows that the scale of an infringer is only one input into the enforcement decision; the strength of the evidence and the nature of the harm can just as easily justify full scale litigation against a small, localised infringer.
WHY BRANDS CALIBRATE: THE LOGIC BEHIND SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT
Selective restraint, where it is exercised, is driven by practical considerations rather than legal limitations, and it operates alongside litigation rather than instead of it. The considerations that keep a brand owner from suing every infringer include:
- Cost and proportionality: litigation costs, including investigation and enforcement, are often disproportionate to the value of small scale infringers.
- Evidentiary challenges: proving infringement requires evidence of use, confusion and commercial activity, which is difficult in informal market settings.
- System capacity: mass litigation against small infringers is inefficient for both brand owners and courts.
- Supply chain efficiency: targeting manufacturers and distributors is more effective than pursuing retail level infringers individually.
None of these considerations rules out litigation. As the Bislie order above shows, once the evidentiary and public interest calculus tips the other way, Bisleri escalates directly to civil litigation and interim relief, even against a small, localised infringer. - Deterrence value: selective action against key infringers creates broader compliance across the market.
CONSUMER AWARENESS AS AN ENFORCEMENT MECHANISM
A significant development in modern trademark protection is the use of consumer education as a preventive enforcement tool.
Rather than relying solely on litigation, brands increasingly use advertising to train consumers to identify authentic products.
Image Source: Bisleri Advertisement[2]
In the case of FMCG brands such as Bisleri, such campaigns typically highlight:
- original packaging design
- bottle shape and structure
- seal authenticity features
- logo placement
- distinctive visual identity elements
These campaigns function as a practical enforcement mechanism by reducing consumer confusion at the point of purchase.
From an enforcement perspective, this approach has several effects:
- reduces likelihood of confusion in the marketplace
- strengthens secondary meaning in trade dress
- improves identification of counterfeit goods
- reduces reliance on repetitive litigation
In effect, enforcement extends into the marketplace by shaping consumer perception directly.
KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR BUSINESSES
The enforcement pyramid model, read together with the Bislie litigation, highlights several practical principles:
Practical Principles
- Enforcement must be timely to avoid acquiescence risks.
- Legal action must be proportionate to commercial impact.
- Upstream enforcement is more effective than downstream litigation.
- Consumer awareness supports legal enforcement.
- The strength of the evidence and the nature of the harm, not the scale of infringement alone, determine when litigation is warranted.
- Enforcement must be structured rather than reactive.
CONCLUSION
Trademark enforcement in India operates as a structured system combining legal remedies, administrative mechanisms and consumer facing strategies, and effective enforcement draws on all of them.
While judicial precedent defines the scope of protection against deceptive similarity, passing off and copyright infringement, enforcement in practice is shaped by commercial realities, market structure and the strength of the evidence available in a given case.
The Bisleri example illustrates that effective trademark protection is not a choice between suing everyone and suing no one. Bisleri has relied on monitoring, cease and desist notices and consumer education against dispersed, low value imitation, and, as the Bislie order of August 2026 shows, has moved swiftly to full scale civil litigation, ex parte injunctions and court supervised search and seizure where the infringement was deliberate, evidentially strong and touched a public health sensitive product.
Selective restraint and strategic litigation are therefore not opposing approaches but two tracks of the same enforcement strategy, and the choice between them turns on the facts of each case rather than on a fixed rule against suing.
[1] Bisleri International Private Limited v. Belaguli Mahalingegowda Kirankumar, Interim Application (L) No. 18664 of 2026 with Leave Petition No. 208 of 2026 with Court Receiver’s Report No. 292 of 2026 in Commercial IP Suit (L.) No. 18582 of 2026, High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Commercial Division (order dated 7 August 2026, Jamdar, J.), confirming the ad interim order dated 11 June 2026.
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuc7suM3yBI
Our Coverage on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7497529856415617024