“Smell” As A Trademark: Limitations And Suggestions

Alan Baiju & Malavika Manoj, Jindal Global Law School

ABSTRACT

Trademarks play a key role in the business world due to increasing competition by facilitating a company’s ability to be different from the competitors, by presenting them with distinguishing characteristics which in turn helps garner a relatively large consumer base. The trademark regime has now seen the emergence of unconventional forms of trademarks such as smell, sound, and taste marks. This article aims to examine the possibility of smell as a trademark with respect to the graphical representation and functionality test as well as discuss functional suggestions that would pave the way for easy registration of such unconventional trademarks.