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(d) confusion is inevitable as the impugned mark 'Collector's Choice' was used with respect to identical products with same class of purchasers and identical trade channels. While dealing with FAO(OS) No. 493/2014 in the case of Sentini Bio Products Pvt. Ltd. (supra), the Division Bench reiterated that the mark 'Officer's Choice' is an arbitrary mark for whisky and even though the two may be common, they are arbitrary to the goods in question and relied on the judgment in Abercrombie and Fitch v. Hunting World, 537 F. 2d 4 (2d Cir. 1976), to highlight the different categories of trademarks i.e. generic, descriptive, suggestive and arbitrary or fanciful. The Division Bench also cited the example of 'Apple' as an arbitrary mark for computers thought it is common knowledge that it is the name of a fruit.

45. Aforementioned judgment needs a special mention to highlight the fact that the Division Bench has recognised the mark Officer's Choice to be an 'arbitrary' mark. Words or marks in trademark jurisprudence are broadly categorized as generic, descriptive, fanciful or arbitrary and invented or coined. In Bata India Limited (supra), this Court, referring to McCarthy on 'Trade Marks and Unfair Competition' drew a spectrum with increasing degrees of distinctiveness and beyond a doubt an arbitrary mark is entitled to the highest degree of protection being inherently distinctive, requiring no evidence to establish a secondary meaning for claiming exclusivity or monopoly.

48. Therefore, seen holistically, the trademark 'Officer's Choice' has travelled its journey from adopting and registering the mark in 1988 to being recognised as an 'arbitrary' mark in the year 2015 by this Court and finally being declared by the Court as a 'well-known' mark in 2017. Plaintiff has stepped into introducing several variants of Neutral Citation Number: 2023:DHC:2608 the mark during these years and boasts of being a registered proprietor of marks such as 'Officer's Choice Blue', 'Officer's Choice Black' etc. as a part of its stable. Wholesale sales (cases containing 9 litres) in millions of the product bearing the mark 'Officer's Choice' has grown from 9.55 millions in 2008-09 to 30.10 millions in 2019-20 and the expenses incurred on advertisement and promotions were to the tune of Rs.52.72 crores in 2019-20 alone. Plaintiff has earned a reputation of being the highest selling whisky as widely reported in reputed magazines such as IWSR and Millionaire's Club. With all this in the backdrop, the question that begs an answer is whether any party can be permitted to use a trademark identical/deceptively similar to Officer's Choice or even come close to it and the answer is in the negative.

50. This case is close to the present case as the Court not only referred to the well-known nature of the mark PLAYBOY but also held that the trademark fell in the category of 'arbitrary' mark, with no connection with the nature or type of goods. The observations which are directly applicable to the present case and thus extremely relevant are: (a) trademark PLAYBOY is an 'arbitrary' mark and thus its close imitation or deceptive similarity with another mark or even its usage in conjunction with another word as a prefix or suffix, is likely to create confusion in the minds of the customers as to its source;