Dismissing an appeal in Lal Babu Priyadarshi v Amritpal Singh, the Supreme Court held that no person can claim the name of a holy or religious book as a trademark.
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Priyadarshi, trading as M/s Om Perfumery, had applied to trademark the name Ramayan, with the device of a crown, in class 3 of the trademark classification. Amritpal Singh – a dealer in the products of M/s Om Perfumery and trading as M/s Badshah Industries – filed a notice of opposition to the registration of Ramayan as a trademark, claiming that the mark cannot be the subject matter of the monopoly of an individual, as it is the name of a religious book.
The Assistant Registrar of Trade Marks dismissed Priyadarshi’s application, holding that the proposed trademark was capable of distinguishing the goods and was not included in the list of marks not registrable under the Trade Marks Act, 1999. Priyadarshi appealed the order before the Intellectual Property Appellate Board, which held that holy books cannot be registered, and set aside the order of the Assistant Registrar of Trade Marks.
On appeal, the Supreme Court considered whether the registration of the word Ramayan as a trademark is prohibited under section 9(2) of the Trade Marks Act, as it the name of a Hindu holy book. The court held that the name Ramayan cannot be registered as a trademark for any commodity under the act. However, if another word precedes or follows the name Ramayan, and “the alphabets or design or length of the words are the same as of the word Ramayan”, it may lose its significance as a religious book, and consequently may be considered for registration as a trademark.
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The dispute digest is compiled by Bhasin & Co, Advocates, a corporate law firm based in New Delhi. The authors can be contacted at lbhasin@bhasinco.in or lbhasin@gmail.com. Readers should not act on the basis of this information without seeking professional legal advice.
