Tatas wins brand battle in Pakistan

The Tata group has won a legal battle in Pakistan against a Peshawar-based company that sought to register "Tatara Tea" as the brand name for its tea products.

Last week, the Sind High Court in Karachi upheld a Tata petition, saying the name, if allowed to register, would create confusion in the market.

It took nearly two years for the Tata group to thwart the Pakistani tea company's plan. In July 2004, Pakistan Trade Mark Registry came out with an order favouring the Tata group but that was challenged by Tatara Tea at the Sind High Court. The court finally dismissed the petition of Tatara Tea on September 26 this year.

This is one among many cases India's second largest business group has been fighting to prevent any misuse of its brand name.

SN Subedar, senior vice-president and company secretary of Tata Sons, says, "The nature of the problem we face is not attempts to counterfeit our products but to misuse the Tata name which has a mass appeal within the country and outside."

Subedar, who is in charge of the core team to protect the Tata brand, cites instances of innumerable websites launched after the names of JRD Tata and Ratan Tata.

This includes even a pornographic website called odacioustatas.com. The Tata group has won all its legal cases, owing to a newly introduced legislation in the US and because of Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organisation's strict laws.

In India, the group has won several cases relating to infringement of the Tata name.

These include the launch of a newspaper, Tata Express, from Varanasi and selling of cutlery items, pressure cookers and steel buckets under the Tata brand name. There has been one instance when a recruitment agency collected money from candidates promising them jobs in Tata Management Ltd.

Akil Hirani, managing partner of Majumdar & Co, a Mumbai-based international law firm, says the problem is widespread and is more acute for groups like the Tatas. "Unscrupulous persons can defend themselves saying that they actually meant to say `bye bye' by using the word tata. Idea Cellular, too, may face this kind of problem as idea is a common English word," he points out.

Other business groups also face similar problems but less frequently than the Tatas. Says a spokesperson of the Aditya Birla group, "We have registered all our brands in the relevant countries."

Also there is a furniture company in Nepal called Podrej, carrying resemblance to the Godrej name. But, since Godrej is not registered in Nepal, the group has not made any attempt to stop the company from using the name.