Pitcher on Shark Tank India sends legal notice to Sony TV, claims damages of 10 times more

Three seasons of ‘Shark Tank India’, aired on Sony TV, have been aired and it has always made its place in controversies. It is once again in the news. The founder of a food brand ‘Fit and Flex’ has accused the channel of unfairly targeting him/her for trademark infringement. According to some media reports, Pathik Patel has also sent a legal notice to the channel over the suspension of his/her ad account. In a post on LinkedIn, Pathik Patel wrote, ‘It is really sad to see this. But we are left with no other option. It has been 50 days since the D2C business has come to a standstill and all we are hearing is that they will not do anything. We went to Shark Tank Season 3 on March 15, which was like a dream come true. But what happened after that turned into a nightmare. Despite the joy of being shown on national TV, our happiness did not last long.

Pitcher made allegations against Sony TV

The post further read, ‘Sony TV has wrongly targeted us for trademark infringement without any information. They have sent a strike on the Shark Tank clip that we shared on social media. We have also removed it from the Facebook page. Apart from this, they have also blocked our ad account. They have also disabled the collaboration feature on our brand account and my personal account. No notice or warning was given in advance. Our episode that was on air was also removed within 25 days. Whereas we could have used it for marketing purposes for 3 months. After this, we also stopped running all Shark Tank clips on organic and paid posts.’

70 brands are facing similar problems

Speaking further about the violations on behalf of the channel, Pathik Patel said, ‘We have been writing to both Meta and Sony on a daily basis for a solution, but the issue is not getting resolved. We do not want to use any of the clips for marketing and just want our original accounts back. We want someone from the Sony team to talk to us and help resolve the matter properly, but sadly not a single party (Sony Legal or Shark Tank) has responded. Not only me, but more than 70 brands are facing these challenges. While we were told to get 5x to 7x growth. The Shark Tank experience has actually given us a huge loss in business and a drop of about 10-12 times. I had built my brand with a lot of heart. All this is very sad.’