Cementing Brand Identity ' BIS Restrained From Interfering With Use Of Cement Brands/Trade Marks By Their Owners

• Published date: 11 June 2021
• Subject Matter: Intellectual Property, Media, Telecoms, IT, Entertainment, Patent, Advertising, Marketing & Branding
• Law Firm: S.S. Rana & Co. Advocates
• Author: Mr Vikrant Rana and Pranit Biswas

Since childhood, many of us can still recall the iconic advertisement of Ambuja Cement featuring the well-known Bollywood actor, Mr. Boman Irani, with its famous tagline "Tootegi Kaise, Ambuja Cement Se Jo Bana Hain", remains ingrained in our minds. In a fiercely competitive market, cement , as a product, is often overlooked and not even ever thought about by the general public, simply because it is a product that is used in personal capacity only a few times during our lifetimes. As such, cement manufacturers have tended to make their branding/trade marks as evocative as possible over the years, to match their eye-catching advertisements. They have also used taglines such as Ultratech Cement: The engineer's choice; Ambuja Cement: Giant compressive strength; JK Cement: Vishwas hai, isme kuch khaas hain; ACC Cement: Paani Se No Haani, etc, to assure the lay public of the quality and features of their products, thereby further cement-ing their brand identity in their minds. They have also augmented their branding and advertisements by using descriptive and/or general terms/statements such as 'Super', 'Super Strong', 'Weather Proof', 'Weather Shield', etc. Such words, coupled with innovative advertising (some examples of which are shown below), have played a large part in creating and establishing brand image and distinguishing features of all cement-based products, playing on the strength and stability, being the main-stay of such products, and have, therefore, become commonplace in the trade.

Thus, usage of such terms in advertisements and branding in general is certainly an industry-wide practice, which the cement lobby/industry argue, is even a necessity to strengthen brands which are meant to portray strength and stability, such is the nature of the products.

The Trademark Perspective

From a purely trademark perspective though, it is evident that usage of terms such as the ones described above, add descriptiveness to the marks, thus may attract objection under Section 9(1)(b) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999. Such marks also raise the question of whether the Registry should even grant registration to such marks, so as to avoid monopolization of terms such as Water Proof, Super Strong, Weather Proof, etc. Monopolization over such words and designations is something the Trade Marks Registry would wish to avoid.

But many such marks have indeed attained registration, likely due to the fact that most such marks have been filed as labels or in association with...