Naming it right!

Santhoshi BS

Starting a new company and thinking about how to name it? Well, naming a company can be as easy as ABC or may get as complicated as it can be! The name of your company becomes a Trademark by which the public recognizes your product. Here are some simple Trademark rules that you need to keep in mind when you are registering the name of your company.

It is generally a trend to give fancy and arbitrary names to a company, since such names are most easily accepted as a Trademark. Though it is tempting to give a name that is related to your product, care should be taken that your brand name is not descriptive, meaning the name should not describe the product it owns. For example: a tyre manufacturing company should not have its name as “High grip”.

“Annapurna”, which is being in use for Food products, cannot be given now for a company that sells fragrances. Such a name would deceive the consumers with a belief that it is a product from the well known Annapurna brand. Also phonetically similar names to the pre-existing/well known brand names are not acceptable Trademarks as it creates confusion to the consumers. In the case of Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. vs. Dua Pharmaceuticals Ltd., the plaintiff company manufactured drugs under the trade name "Calmpose", which acts as an anti depressant. Dua Pharmaceuticals manufactured a similar drug and marketed it under the Trademark "Calmprose". The two names were phonetically and visually similar. Notwithstanding this, the packaging and colour scheme of the two were also the same. Ranbaxy countered this by filing a Trademark infringement case against Dua pharma in Delhi High Court. The Court held that there was a very good possibility that both the drugs would be available at

the same store and Calmprose would be sold to the customer and passed off as Calmpose. And since the packaging, colour scheme were also similar, the probability that the customer would get confused was greater. Based on such investigations, the Court then declared an injunction, restraining Dua Pharmaceuticals from selling Calmprose.

 

“It is generally a trend to give fancy and arbitrary names to a company, since such names are most easily accepted as a Trademark” but care should be taken that your brand name is not descriptive, meaning the name should not describe the product it owns.

 Another essential thing to be kept in mind while naming your company is to avoid attaching it with any geographical region. Such names cannot be registered as Trademark but come under the category of Geographical Indication (GI). Some examples are Tirupathi laddu, Tirunelveli Halwa, Mysore silk etc. Such names are usually given to the community who are involved in the manufacture of such goods and are restricted to an individual. In the case of Tata’s Mount Everest vs.  Bisleri, there was a dispute over the Trademark “Himalayan” that was owned by the Tata group. The case was filed by Tata over usage of words “from the Himalayas” on the bottle of Bisleri. In counteraction, Bisleri argued that, “Himalaya” is a word of geographical origin and should be removed from the Trademark registry. In deciding the case, the Intellectual Property Appellate Board said that registration of the word “Himalayan” does not give one the exclusive right to use the term as a Trademark for its product.

This gives an insight about the importance of a thorough Trademark search that needs to be performed before registering your Company name. It is better to give time deciding about the name than facing the legal battles and registration complications later. And always, innovative names will make your customers curious about your product. So go ahead and put your thinking caps ON to start the name game!

Disclaimer: The points listed above are generic and provides only an overview but there are several factors that govern selection and registration of trademark and it shall be worked out on case by case basis.