NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has clarified that American fast food restaurant chain KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) will not have any exclusive rights in the word ‘Chicken’ while dealing with its application for registration of the trademark ‘Chicken Zinger.’
With the clarification, the single-judge bench of Justice Sanjeev Narula asked the Trademark Registry to consider KFC’s application in Class 29 which deals with the registration of marks for meat, fish, poultry, and game products.
The court was hearing the plea by the popular food outlet against December 2018 orders passed by the senior examiner, wherein the registration was denied under the Trademark Act noting that the mark ‘CHICKEN ZINGER’ is “descriptive of characteristics of the goods or services to which it is applied.”
Notably, ‘Chicken Zinger’ has registration under trademark Class 30, which pertains to auxiliaries that improve the flavour of food. Products like coffee, tea, sugar, namkeen, chocolate, rice, flour, cereals, bread, honey, salt, spices, ice, sauces, etc. are all included in this section.
KFC is also having registrations of other trademarks including Zinger, Hot Zinger, Paneer Zinger, Zinger Festival and Tower Zinger. It was observed by the court that the subject mark comprises two words – “CHICKEN” and “ZINGER”. The dictionary meaning of “ZINGER” is “a thing outstandingly good of its kind” or “a wisecrack; punch line” or “a surprise question; an unexpected turn of events”.
The order said the use of “ZINGER” in conjunction with “CHICKEN” does not draw an instant connection with the kind of goods/ services and may at best, be considered suggestive.