Britannia-Danone talk may veer to Little Hearts

After the Tiger brand, the spotlight in the ongoing intellectual property discussions between Britannia and French dairy and beverages major Groupe Danone may include Little Hearts.

Little Hearts, the heart-shaped sugar-coated biscuit, was a part of Groupe Danone's biscuits business that was sold to Kraft Foods of the US in July this year.

"The agreement between Danone and Kraft about the disposal of Danone's biscuits division includes all the biscuits trademarks worldwide," said a Groupe Danone spokesperson.

Britannia executives were, however, non-committal on whether the company had initiated discussions to return the Little Hearts trademark and the right to use the product recipe back to Groupe Danone.

The company also did not comment on whether it would extend its agreement to manufacture and sell Little Hearts in India with Kraft.

Responding to queries, a Britannia spokesperson nearly said that the Little Hearts brand was under the purview of the Intellectual Property Rights Committee of the Britannia board set up in May 2006.

In the last one year, the committee has been working to resolve the issue of the alleged use and registration of Britannia's Tiger brand by Groupe Danone in several countries, without the consent or authorisation of the Britannia board.

The IPR Committee is currently chaired by an independent director, Vijay Kelkar. Britannia MD Vinita Bali and two other independent directors, Nimesh Kampani and Keki Dadiseth, are also on the committee.

According to Britannia, Danone had moved to establish the Tiger brand as its own property in 70 countries and had managed to obtain the Tiger registration in 40 countries.

The company claims that Danone currently sells Tiger in Indonesia, Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan and Singapore.