Trademarkmaldives | Intellectual Property | Law Firm in Maldives: trademark rights

Monday, 6 July 2020

Emami Raises Objections to HUL Rebranding Men's Skincare Range as 'Glow & Handsome'

Emami Limited, an Indian conglomerate company headquartered in Kolkata, has quite recently raised objections to industry peer Hindustan Unilever Limited – rebranding its skin products in the men’s range as ‘Glow & Handsome’ – by claiming Trademark Rights over the name. The home-grown FMCG has also hinted at initiating legal proceedings as it has already changed the name of its men’s fairness cream to ‘Emami Glow & Handsome.’

In a recent statement delivered, Emami, the maker of ‘Fair and Handsome’ brand of men’s grooming range, mentioned that the company is indeed shocked to know about HUL’s decision of renaming its men’s skincare range from ‘Fair & Lovely’ to ‘Glow & Handsome.’ According to Emami, it is, at present, the market leader in the field of men’s fairness cream by having legal ownership of all the trademarks in place.

The Kolkata-based FMCG Company also said that it is only shocked and not surprised to observe HUL’s unfair business practice as HUL has been prevalent time and again to damage Emami’s brand image and reputation in the market. The company further added that it would soon be getting in touch with its legal experts to address this issue and related concerns.

The Indian subsidiary of Unilever PLC (a British-Dutch multinational company), HUL, recently stated that it is now rebranding its widely known skincare brand ‘Fair & Lovely’ as ‘Glow & Lovely’ after giving up on the word ‘Fair’ in the name. It also mentioned that its men’s skincare range would be called ‘Glow & Handsome.’

As per various reports, HUL had approached the Controller General of Patents, Trademarks, and Designs, a while ago, to get the name ‘Glow & Lovely’ registered.

Multiple cosmetic brands have been under the scanner for quite a while now over their products that promote skin fairness for stereotyping racial types. Moreover, the same has been intensified further in the wake of the ongoing ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests in the West.

Quite recently, Johnson & Johnson (J&J), the US FMCG and healthcare giant, has also stopped the sales of its skin whitening creams worldwide, including India.

The French personal care company, L’Oréal Group, has mentioned in a recent statement delivered that it shall remove words, like fair, fairness, white, whitening, and so on, from all its range of skincare products.

As of now, HUL has not delivered any comments on the entire matter. For view source: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com/blog/twitter-takes-down-image-tweeted-by-president-trump-over-copyright-claim/

Don’t forget to follow us on social media:

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/trademarkmaldives/

Twitter – https://twitter.com/trademarkmaldiv

Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/company/trademarkmaldives/

Pinterest – https://in.pinterest.com/trademarkmaldives/

Tumblr – https://trademarkmaldives.tumblr.com/

Contact - US

Email Id: info@trademarkmaldives.com

Website: www.trademarkmaldives.com

Friday, 12 June 2020

Understanding the Importance of Trademarks for Small Businesses

Unless you own a Registered Trademark, your idea, concept, and unique branding can freely be stolen by your competitors in the present fast-paced society, which is indeed something you would never want to happen. After you spend all the time, effort, and money on your unique and creative branding, it becomes convenient for other businesses to copy what initially belongs to you. Therefore, without any second thoughts, small businesses do need to have a registered trademark like any other type and size of business out there.

Small businesses and startups with tight profit margins quite often overlook the utmost importance of protecting their most valuable asset, i.e., trademarks. Small business owners must know and understand well the following aspects:

1. What is a trademark?

2. Why is trademark a valuable form of Intellectual Property (IP)?

3. What is the difference between a registered and unregistered trademark?

4. Why is there a need to go ahead with Trademark Registration?

What exactly is a Trademark?

A trademark refers to any word, phrase, symbol, logo, or their combination that enables the customers in the market to know about the source of a product or service. A trademark is a company, product, or brand name. For instance, Coca Cola is a widely known trademark for cola products.

Trademarks are different from a patent and copyright, which are the other exclusive forms of IP. When it comes to copyright, it prevents the artistic and creative works, like music recordings, novels, etc. from being used, copied, stolen, or distributed without the permission of the owner. A patent protects the novel, useful, and non-obvious inventions, like a hybrid engine, a new microprocessor, etc. from being used by the competitors.

There are undoubtedly many good reasons explaining why every small business needs to have a registered trademark; let’s have a look at them:

1. Official Trademark Registration

Keeping aside the size and type of your business, you need to make sure that you have a registered trademark in place for your small business, which shall help you significantly in preventing and facing critical issues in the future. It is a matter of fact that yes – trademark litigation lawsuits are both complicated and expensive, which can further deplete resources, effort, and time. Hence, if you are not willing to go through the hassle and stress down the road, you need to start considering the scope of getting a registered trademark for your small business.

2. Brand Identity Protection

If you wish to protect your brand identity, you must own a trademark for your small business as you can then use the same on any concept or packaging solely or exclusively that you create for your brand. Following are a few points explaining the benefits of having a registered trademark for brand identity protection:

A trademark helps a business in gaining instant brand recognition.
A trademark becomes the core foundation and image of a business.
A trademark offers a massive degree of protection against reputation-damaging copycats.
A trademark stops the arch-competitors from making unauthorized use of a brand’s identity.

3. Trademark Designation

The registered trademark designation helps in notifying the other businesses out there about the Trademark Rights associated with a small business’ brand name, logo, or symbol. If you own a small business and have a registered trademark for the same, it implies that your competitors can’t steal your brand identity, which is a result of your sheer hard work and brand building.

For view source: https://www.trademarkmaldives.com/blog/understanding-the-importance-of-trademarks-for-small-businesses/