Winter had settled over the city with quiet authority. It sat on metal railings, on stone floors, in the morning air that made people walk faster without realising why. Outside the Delhi High Court, lawyers moved in clusters, black coats pulled tighter, conversations clipped and purposeful. <\/p>\n
Inside one of the courtrooms, the cold stopped at the door. Gagan Agarwal felt a film of sweat gather along his forehead. His throat tightened before a single word was spoken. For a moment, he tried to place the feeling. He couldn\u2019t. <\/p>\n
Not in 2019\u2014outside the delivery room\u2014pacing, waiting, counting minutes as his first child fought its way into the world. That had been anxiety. Anticipation. <\/p>\n
Nor in June 2023 either, when the first legal notice arrived and the fight, still distant then, took shape on paper. <\/p>\n
This was different. Inside the courtroom, he wasn\u2019t waiting anymore. He was in it\u2014fighting for his baby. <\/p>\n
Inside the courtroom: How close is too close?<\/p>\n
As soon as the judge walked in, the murmurs dissolved. The silence tightened. <\/p>\n
Agarwal, meanwhile, held his gaze steady. He knew what was on the line. This wasn\u2019t just another hearing. He was fighting for his baby. And he wasn\u2019t here to lose. <\/p>\n
The lawyer for the plaintiff rose first and went straight to the point. This, he told the court, was a case of infringement. It was a case of a younger brand stepping too close. <\/p>\n
The argument moved quickly from premise to detail. Both brands, it was argued, operated in the same space\u2014premium Ayurveda. Both drew from the same vocabulary: nature, purity and tradition. And increasingly, both were speaking to the same consumer\u2014young, urban, willing to pay for products they believed were safer and cleaner. But the overlap wasn\u2019t the concern. The real issue was how close they now sat to each other. <\/p>\n
Then came the names. Forest Essentials. Baby Forest. <\/p>\n
Forest Essentials had brought Baby Forest to court over the name\u2014Forest\u2014alleging infringement. What began with a legal notice in June 2023 had now turned into a full-blown courtroom battle. <\/p>\n
In court, it came down to how the names sounded. Spoken one after the other, the names echoed. That echo sat at the centre of the argument. <\/p>\n
In a category built as much on perception as on product, even a degree of similarity can mislead\u2014especially when the purchase isn\u2019t casual, but for a newborn. <\/p>\n
To support that claim, examples followed. <\/p>\n
First were emails from hospitality partners asking if \u2018Baby Forest\u2019 was an extension of Forest Essentials. Then came search results pairing the two names before a full query had even been entered. It was followed by social media comments treating them as part of the same brand family. <\/p>\n
Individually, each instance was small. But taken together, they began to point in the same direction. <\/p>\n
When the defence rose, the shift was noticeable. At the centre of the dispute, they argued, was a word that could not be claimed on its own. \u2018Forest\u2019 was not invented. It was descriptive and widely used, especially in a category built around nature and origin. Granting exclusivity over it, they argued, would stretch trademark protection beyond its intent. <\/p>\n
There was another line of argument. Trademarks, the defence said, could not be broken apart. They had to be read as a whole. <\/p>\n
And taken that way, \u2018Forest Essentials\u2019 and \u2018Baby Forest\u2019 did not create the same impression\u2014whether visually, structurally or in how a consumer encountered them. <\/p>\n
The forest, and who owns it<\/p>\n
To understand why the argument mattered, you need to step back from the courtroom and look at the terrain. <\/p>\n
Forest Essentials was not a new entrant testing the waters. <\/p>\n
Founded in 2000 by Mira Kulkarni, it had spent over two decades shaping\u2014and in many ways defining\u2014luxury Ayurveda in India. What began as a niche, almost boutique, offering had expanded into a national presence, with more than 150 stores and a strong footprint in luxury hotels. <\/p>\n
Reportedly, by FY25, the company had crossed \u20b9572 crore in operating revenue, with profits of about \u20b9128 crore. Its baby care line existed but it was a small part of the business, contributing roughly \u20b915 crore. <\/p>\n
Scale, though, was only part of the story. <\/p>\n
Over the years, The Est\u00e9e Lauder Companies had steadily increased its stake in Forest Essentials, bringing with it global distribution, deeper capital, and a playbook refined across markets. <\/p>\n
Across from it stood a much younger company. At the time the dispute began, Baby Forest was doing just over \u20b92 crore in revenue. <\/p>\n
In a category where the language itself is shared\u2014nature, purity, Ayurveda\u2014how much of that language can one brand claim? And where does another begin? <\/p>\n
This clash between Forest Essentials and Baby Forest feels straight out of The Jungle Book\u2014a Mowgli versus Shere Khan moment, reckons marketing and branding experts. \u201cOne is the reigning force in luxury Ayurveda. The other walks in, uninvited and unafraid,\u201d says Ashita Aggarwal, professor of marketing at SP Jain Institute of Management & Research. \u201cThis isn\u2019t just about products. It\u2019s about who gets to claim the forest,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
India\u2019s babywear market represents a sizeable business opportunity. According to IMARC Group, the market was worth $7.7 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $11.2 billion by 2034, growing at a compound annual rate of 4.05% during 2026\u20132034. The research firm identifies rising disposable incomes, expanding online retail and growing demand for premium, branded and organic baby clothing as key drivers. <\/p>\n
Forest Essentials built its position slowly\u2014ritual by ritual, bottle by bottle\u2014turning Ayurveda into something aspirational, almost ceremonial. \u201cThe forest, in its world, is curated, refined and elevated,\u201d says Aggarwal, adding that Baby Forest arrives with a different instinct. \u201cIt brings Ayurveda closer: less ritual and more routine; less distance and more immediacy,\u201d she adds. <\/p>\n
But long before courtrooms and contested names, the story began elsewhere.<\/p>\n
It started in Agra, Uttar Pradesh. It started inside a family business that ran on routine and predictability more than reinvention. <\/p>\n
Agarwal grew up around edible oils. The business ran on volume\u2014procurement, processing, distribution\u2014each part fitting into the next with quiet efficiency. Tankers came in, raw material moved through the system and finished product went out. <\/p>\n
It was predictable. And that was the point. <\/p>\n
By the time he stepped in, the playbook was already written. <\/p>\n
Margins sat at 2%, sometimes less. It was enough to sustain scale, but not enough to create sudden upside. Growth came through tighter operations, better sourcing and incremental expansion. \u201cYou don\u2019t disrupt this kind of business,\u201d says Agarwal, CEO and founder of Baby Forest Ayurveda. \u201cYou just run it better.\u201d <\/p>\n
For a few years, that\u2019s what he did. There was comfort in it. There was familiarity. There was continuity. But there was also a ceiling. <\/p>\n
The ground beneath the fight<\/p>\n
The shift didn\u2019t come as a sudden break. It built gradually, through exposure to adjacent categories\u2014products built on the same base inputs but positioned very differently. <\/p>\n
Here, oils and extracts didn\u2019t move as commodities. They moved as formulations. They carried identity, narrative, pricing power. Margins expanded sharply\u2014not by a few points, but by multiples. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s when it clicked. \u201cMy eyes lit up,\u201d says the 35-year-old founder. Imagine the excitement of a person who has been working on margins of 2% and suddenly spots a business that has margins of around 80%. <\/p>\n
Around the same time, something else shifted\u2014closer to home. In 2019, he had his first child. What had earlier been abstract\u2014labels, ingredient lists, marketing claims\u2014became personal.<\/p>\n
The questions were simple. What oil goes on a newborn\u2019s skin? What exactly is inside it? How much of what is called \u2018natural\u2019 actually holds up? <\/p>\n
The answers weren\u2019t straightforward. While the labels spoke confidently\u2014natural, gentle, safe\u2014a closer look told a different story. Blends, additives, and percentages punctured that promise. \u201c80% were natural, but the rest was still chemical,\u201d Agarwal claims. <\/p>\n
What began as a search turned into something more deliberate. He started going deeper\u2014into formulations, sourcing, how products were actually put together. The gap between what was claimed and what was delivered became harder to ignore. <\/p>\n
At the factory, he dealt with raw material\u2014oils, inputs, supply chains. At home, he dealt with the end use\u2014what actually touched skin. The idea began to take shape here\u2014not as a plan, but as a shift in perspective. \u201cWhat if you start from the most sensitive user?\u201d he said. \u201cWhere you can\u2019t afford to get it wrong.\u201d What if purity wasn\u2019t something added later but where you began? <\/p>\n
Turning that shift into a business was not immediate. Ideas are easy to hold in your head. Translating them into something that works\u2014consistently, commercially, at scale\u2014is harder. <\/p>\n
Choosing control over speed<\/p>\n
For Agarwal, the early decisions were less about growth and more about control. If the premise was purity\u2014real, verifiable, non-negotiable\u2014too many variables could weaken it. Outsourcing would introduce those variables. <\/p>\n
So, he stayed close to sourcing, formulation and how the product actually came together. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to lose control of what was going inside,\u201d he says. It slowed things down. That was fine. Speed wasn\u2019t the objective. <\/p>\n
The second decision was positioning. <\/p>\n
The Indian baby care market already had presence at both ends\u2014legacy brands with deep distribution, and newer digital-first companies built for visibility. <\/p>\n
But a gap existed. It was not obvious, but visible. That realisation shaped the move. \u201cWhen you see that there is a huge gap and demand, then why not enter the business,\u201d he says. The opening sat in a narrow band\u2014premium enough to justify better inputs and focussed enough to build credibility over time. \u201cForest Essentials should have taken this opportunity. They didn\u2019t. We did,\u201d says Agarwal. <\/p>\n
Forest Essentials did have a presence in baby care\u2014but as a line within a larger portfolio. It sat under the mother brand, without a separate identity. <\/p>\n
Agarwal, meanwhile, took a different route. He built the category around the user first\u2014giving it a name, a boundary, and a brand of its own. <\/p>\n
That positioning, though, came with trade-offs. Pricing was one of them. At the factory, he understood cost. In the market, he saw something else. Products priced at \u20b940 sat next to products at \u20b9700. Both claimed to be natural. Both claimed to be safe. The difference wasn\u2019t always obvious. \u201cYou can\u2019t build this at \u20b940,\u201d he said. \u201cSomething has to give.\u201d <\/p>\n
Agarwal had to choose where to sit. Lower price meant faster adoption, but compromise. Higher price meant slower growth, but tighter control. He chose the latter. That choice carried through everything else. Formulations couldn\u2019t be adjusted downward to meet price points. Ingredients couldn\u2019t be swapped out for cheaper alternatives. The product had to stand on its own before the brand could. <\/p>\n
By the time Baby Forest was taking shape, the consumer startup ecosystem had settled into a pattern: raise capital early, spend on acquisition, scale fast. <\/p>\n
Agarwal didn\u2019t follow that playbook. There was no venture funding, no aggressive push to expand, no urgency to build top-line numbers for visibility. <\/p>\n
His approach was deliberate. He built steadily, letting the product find acceptance and trust build through use rather than advertising. The name came together in that phase. \u201cForest\u201d carried what he wanted\u2014nature, origin, something closer to source. \u201cBaby\u201d set the boundary. \u201cIt keeps you honest,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can\u2019t hide behind claims when the user is a newborn,\u201d says Agarwal, who registered the name in 2020. <\/p>\n
From traction to tension<\/p>\n
Baby Forest began operations in October 2022. The early months reflected that restraint. There were no large launches, no heavy marketing pushes, and no attempt to flood the market. Products moved in small batches, distribution stayed limited, and feedback loops were short\u2014what worked stayed, what didn\u2019t was reworked. In the first six months, the business crossed roughly \u20b92.5 crore in revenue. <\/p>\n
For a brand not chasing scale, that number carried weight. <\/p>\n
The second year brought more clarity, with cautious expansion in distribution and a product range that grew without straying from the same discipline. By the end of that year, revenues were approaching \u20b910 crore. <\/p>\n
The stronger signal came from behaviour. Customers were returning. In a category where trust is fragile\u2014more so when the user is a newborn\u2014that kind of repeat use is hard to fake. <\/p>\n
The brand also began to rethink where it showed up. Online marketplaces were crowded. Discovery there was expensive, often driven by visibility rather than conviction. So, Agarwal moved closer to the moment of decision\u2014hospitals and maternity centres. These were the places where first-time parents were already asking the same questions he had asked a few years earlier. \u201cIt\u2019s not about reach,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s about being there when the decision is made.\u201d <\/p>\n
The focus shifted towards proximity. By mid-2023, the brand was no longer under the radar. The name had begun to travel, customers recognised it, and conversations picked up. <\/p>\n
By FY25, operating revenue had reached \u20b919.96 crore, with repeat customers forming a significant share. It claims to have closed FY26 at \u20b926.61 crore. The company remains bootstrapped. <\/p>\n
Profitability, however, is still taking shape. The business continues to invest in product and distribution, and while it was loss-making through FY24, FY25 and most of FY26\u2014\u20b91.20 crore, \u20b94.07 crore and \u20b92.5 crore, respectively\u2014Agarwal says it has begun turning profitable from January this year. <\/p>\n
That build-up didn\u2019t stay unnoticed for long. It invited comparison\u2014and eventually, a response. <\/p>\n
That response arrived on June 16, 2023, in the form of a legal notice from Forest Essentials. The notice argued that the name \u201cBaby Forest\u201d had come too close, entering a space it claimed as its own. <\/p>\n
What followed was not a single confrontation, but a sequence\u2014replies drafted, arguments framed, documents filed. Each step pulled the brand deeper into a process it hadn\u2019t set out to enter but now had to navigate. <\/p>\n
Out of the woods, for now<\/p>\n
By August 2023, the matter had reached the courts. For Agarwal, the impact was immediate. The business didn\u2019t pause, but it began to feel different. Alongside product and distribution decisions came legal consultations, strategy discussions, and the steady drain on time and attention that litigation brings. <\/p>\n
The stakes sharpened. The question now extended beyond building a brand\u2014it touched on whether the brand could continue under the name it had chosen. <\/p>\n
In May 2024, the Delhi High Court refused to grant an injunction, allowing Baby Forest to continue using its name while the case moved forward. <\/p>\n
The reasoning went to the centre of the dispute. The word forest, the court observed, was descriptive, widely used, and not something that could be claimed in isolation. Trademarks had to be assessed as a whole, and on that basis, the two marks were not found to be deceptively similar at a prima facie level. <\/p>\n
The proceedings continued. <\/p>\n
In February 2026, the court dismissed the appeal filed by Forest Essentials, upholding the 2024 decision and finding no prima facie deceptive similarity between the marks: Baby Forest and Forest Essentials. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe dismissal of the injunction and the subsequent ruling by the division bench in our favour is reassuring and encouraging,\u201d he says. At Baby Forest, he underlines, the focus continues to remain on creating safe, natural and Ayurveda-inspired products for babies. \u201cWe remain focused on our mission to bring the goodness of Ayurveda to modern parenting,\u201d he adds. <\/p>\n
For now, Baby Forest keeps its name and its place in the market. <\/p>\n
But what comes next is a different test. Growth still needs to hold. Profitability has only just begun to turn. Winter, though, has passed and the forest is changing. <\/p>\n
And this one is still a baby\u2014just stepping into its first spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Winter had settled over the city with quiet authority. It sat on metal railings, on stone floors, in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[256866,256863,201549,256859,256867,256865,229395,256864,38904,87200,256860,102,256862,6591,218150,243299,256861,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-779210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-ayurveda-startup","tag-ayurvedic-babycare","tag-baby-care","tag-baby-forest","tag-baby-market","tag-baby-skincare","tag-brand-confusion","tag-brand-infringement","tag-delhi-high-court","tag-estee-lauder","tag-forest-essentials","tag-health","tag-luxury-ayurveda","tag-medication","tag-natural-products","tag-premium-skincare","tag-trademark-dispute","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}