Producers should apply for trademark registration for their film titles

Trademarks have long been known as the face of enterprises and companies by which it conducts business and establishes a connection with product and the customer. Every brand needs a name to achieve fame in the long run. Films, fashion and entertainment are no new to this world of brands and Intellectual Property Rights.

It all starts with an idea and name of the film which captures the imagination of people and masses, then the title and the story line are registered with the Association of Film Makers and Producers’ Association or by any other Association.

But what is the legal sanctity of such registration. Does it create a statutory right? Does it grant any kind of protection for the name of the film to the producer from not being used in any other film, series or any services. The idea is protected in the form of copyright for the storyline and plot but what about the name of the film.

Film and serial titles perse do not carry any legal weight and needs to be leveraged by filing trademarks. In general, we have seen that producers and film makers work within the turf of industry and association rules to sue each other on any duplicate or copy work.

All the questions in the first para find their answer thru a latest judgment by the Bombay high court which reinstated good legal understanding in "Lootere OTT case" refers to the legal dispute between the producer Sunil Saberwal of the 1993 Hindi film Lootere and Star India (now JioStar), which released a web series with the same name Lootere.

The contention of Sunil is that he had exclusive rights on the title of his film Lootere based on his copyright in the film released in 1993 and registration of the title with the producers association and therefore sought injunction to prevent the release of the web series in OTT platform.

Then defendants took the stand of arguing that there is no copyright in a film title and that industry association registrations have no statutory force against non-member in court of law without a valid trademark registration on the name or the title. Further, the story line was different from the 1993 Lootere and there wasn’t any copyright violation except for the title.

The Bombay high court said that mere sharing of title doesn’t violate any IP or gives any legal right in this case as the title Lootere was not a registered TM. Registrations by film makers with associations are only agreements between members of the association with no statutory right for enforcement against non-members.

This is not the first of its kind that the court has made such rulings, in cases of Nishad, Desi Boyz courts have given rulings that movie titles cannot be protected under the copyright law neither the registration of the name of the film with the association gives any legal right.

With all these in the background, the way forward for film makers and producers will be to register the name of the film with the TM registry and get a TM registration on the title to enjoy exclusive right and in parallel continue to register the name and story with the association which is a common trade and industry practice.

With the chaos of so much content being streamed on so many platforms like film, theatres, OTT , social media with similar names and titles many legal experts believe that a single window title registration portal for registrations of titles can streamline this process for better legal enforcement.

To conclude, Operation Sindoor was filed for trademark by so many producers and film makers to get this exclusivity on the title to create any content on a later date .The approach was right, but the claim had no legal base as the name was in the national Interest for a defence mission of the government.

Hence, it’s important to think of your own title and immediately register the title for a trademark to claim your right which recognised in the court of law.

(Author is head, Legal & IPR, Resolute Group of Companies and Founder Resolute4IP)