Charmy Gopani & Ashi Agarwal, Symbiosis Law School, Pune
ABSTRACT
As far as the legal framework is concerned, the Trademarks Act1 does not explicitly mention Fluid Trademarks. However, protection is available to unregistered Trademarks as a claim of passing off. Thus, even without registration of the Fluid Trademark, the rights can still be claimed based on the goodwill that the mark has acquired among the people. Further under Section 152 of the Trademarks Act, there is a provision for the registration of a series of Trademarks. The only issue that arises is the dynamic and unpredictable nature of the Fluid Trademarks becomes an obstacle in claiming these protections. Even though a case of infringement of Fluid Trademarks is yet to come before the Indian Courts, it can become an issue in the coming years due to the increased popularity of the fluid marks. Thus, we can see that presently there no concrete provisions in the Indian Jurisprudence to control and protect the infringement of Fluid Trademarks. Thus, keeping all this in mind, the article is aimed to analyze the existing legal provisions for the regulation of fluid trademarks.
Keywords: Fluid Mark, Trademark Act, Confusion in the Consumers, Weakens the Original Trademark, No legislation for fluid marks
