GUJRAT NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

TOPIC BRAND & TRADEMARKS

Registration No. 08A049

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TABLE OF CONTENT

Meaning of Brand............................................. 3 Meaning of Trademark..................................... 3 Legal meaning of Brand.................................... 4 Legal meaning of Trademark............................. 4 Problems during the marketing of Brand.......... 5 Legal Infringement........................................... 6 Legal provision protecting brand...................... 7 Conclusion....................................................... 8

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Meaning of Brand
A brand is an identifying symbol, words, or mark that distinguishes a product or company from its competitors. Usually brands are registered (trademarked) with a regulatory authority and so cannot be used freely by other parties. For many products and companies, branding is an essential part of marketing Example Coco-Cola, Marlboro, McDonalds, Uncle Chips

Meaning of Trade Mark

A trade-mark is a word, design, number, two-dimensional or three-dimensional form, sound or colour, or a combination of two or more of these elements which a trader uses to distinguish his/her products or services from those of his/her competitors and serves to establish goodwill with the consumer. A trademark is designated by the following symbols:

(for an unregistered trade mark, that is, a mark used to promote or brand goods) (for an unregistered service mark, that is, a mark used to promote or brand services) (for a registered trademark)

Examples of Registered Trade Mark

Meaning of Brand - http://www.investorwords.com/568/brand.html Meaning of Trade Mark - http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/trademarks/g/trademark.htm Images of Brand & Tademark - http://www.google.co.in/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi

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Legal Meaning of Brand

A brand is the personality that identifies a product, service or company (name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or combination of them) and how it relates to key constituencies: Customers, Staff, Partners, Investors etc. A brand can take many forms, including a name, sign, symbol, colour combination or slogan. A legally protected brand name is called a trademark. The word brand has continued to evolve to encompass identity - it affects the personality of a product, company or service.

Legal Meaning of Trade Mark

The Trade Mark Act, 1999 defines well known trade mark as a mark in relation to any goods and services which has become so to the substantial segment which uses such goods or receives such services that the use of such mark in relation to other goods or services would be likely to be taken as indicating a connection in course of trade or rendering of services between those goods or services and a person using the mark in relation to the first mentioned goods or services

Legal Meaning of Brand - http://www.answers.com/topic/brand Legal Meaning of Trademark - http://www.cafezine.com/depts/article.asp?id=23589&deptid=4 GUJRAT NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY Page 4

Problems during the marketing of Brand

1.

The role of your corporate brand is unclear. Who does it speak to? How does it relate to brands you use in the marketplace? Should it apply to everything you sell? Should it be invisible to customers? 2. Your brands hide the true scope of your business. Do you find that customers or investors do not recognize the scope of your company? Perhaps you are known for one thing and underappreciated in other areas. Perhaps one of your product brands overshadows your corporate brand. 3. You have brands that overlap. Overlapping brands are when two or more different brands talk to similar audiences and have similar offerings. Do your brands compete for resources and cannibalize one another? What may seem like substantial product differences internally may be invisible to customers. 4. Your portfolio of brands is large and unwieldy. How many is too many? Is it difficult to bundle services and cross-sell? Are you spending too much supporting too many brands and earning too little in return? 5. You have a hodge-podge of brands from acquisitions. Does your company accumulate brands through acquisitions, like an athlete with a shelf full of trophies? Are these brands kept for sentimental or anecdotal reasons without a solid business case? 6. You are expanding into new areas but dont think your existing brands can do the job. Perhaps your product innovations or market expansion is a radical departure from your current offerings. What kind of branding do you need to support your changing business? Creating new brands is very exciting, but is it always necessary?

Problem during the marketing of Brand http://www.versegroup.com/downloads/VerseGroup_brandarch_series.pdf GUJRAT NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY Page 5

Legal Infringement
These days duplicacy of brands are in fashion. Some of the examples which I have seen in my day to day life are as follows Famous brand of Petha (sweets) Panchi is sold in the name of Pranchi. Blackcherry is targeting the customers of Blackberry. Cadbury clairs toffee is being replaced by its duplicate brand Chaudhary clairs in small towns.

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Legal Provisions protecting brand

To make your business entity brand there are two important phases, which are very essential to run the business successfully. Brand registration in India creates the specific quality and image of the product, which may be in the form of image or word. Today, Brands have become the single most important asset of many business organizations. The need to protect them from imitation, unauthorized copying, and unfair competition is therefore all the more necessary. Brand Protection in India informs the reader of the different legal measures available to protect brands, including copyright, trademarks, patents, and designs. The brand registration has played a major role in making business successfully by protecting the brand of product. Determining the value of a brand is normally a combination of direct and indirect processes. A direct measurement process is one which arrives at a price based on the communication investment made behind the brand. The brand name is used interchangeably with brand to indicate written or spoken linguistic elements of the brand. Brand name is a kind of trademark that identifies the brand owner as the commercial source of services or products. Through trademark registration, the brand owner may seek to protect the proprietary rights in relation to a brand name. trademark registration in India is one of the most important processes, that protect the brand of trademark. Not only trademark registration procedure is essential, but also trademark news and trademark monitoring play major role to get updated news how to register a trademark in India & across the globe.

Legal provision protecting brands - http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/brandregistration-in-india-how-to-protect-brand-name-1597551.html

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Conclusion
Trademarks and Patents are very important aspects of Intellectual Property. Trademark Protection has become important in present day competitive world because, every producer of a good or service will want his mark to be unique, eye catching as well as it should be easily distinguishable from others. Creating a mark like this is quite difficult and after all this when infringing of the mark takes place it will case utmost difficulty to the manufacturer. Intellectual Property is not an alien concept in fact it is a concept which is seen in everyday life whether a movie, book, plant variety, food item, cosmetics, electrical gadgets, softwares etc. It has become a concept of prevalence in everyday life. People have also started celebrating World Intellectual Property Day on 26th April every year. Intellectual Property Protection is very important and there should be a movement towards Global Intellectual Property Order, if there is no IPR protection, it can be argued that inventive activity will cease. The rationale for Intellectual Property protection is that it can stimulate creativity and innovation and encourage the exploitation of inventions for the good of the society. Public policy here aims at maintaining an intellectual Property system which encourages innovation through proactive protection initiatives, while at the same time ensuring that this is not at the cost of societal interests. In this context, the challenge for World Intellectual Property Organisation would be to incorporate public policy issues in programs carried out with developing countries, such as raising awareness of flexibilities in existing international intellectual property treaties. Many treaties and conventions have taken place in the field of Intellectual Property particularly Patents and Trade Marks. If Indias international affiliations are to be talked about India is an active member of the International body WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation).It is also part of two treaties namely Paris Convention 1883 where Industrial Property is protected and Berne Convention 1886 where Literary and Artistic Works are protected. India adheres to TRIPS and has modified its Trademark laws to conform according to it. The purpose of all this is to protect individuality of the manufacture, prevent infringement and improper usage of signs. As the famous American historian and educator Daniel J. Boorstein quotes An image... is simply not a trademark, a design, a slogan or an easily remembered picture. It is a studiously crafted personality profile of an individual, institution corporation, product or service. So every mark denotes an individualistic persona that has to be respected and the goodwill maintained
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