Big Bazaar vs. Big Bazar – What’s in a name?
The war is on between Reliance’s A-DAG group and Pantaloon over ‘Big Bazaar’ name. Reliance has been granted the trademark to use ‘“Reliance Big Bazar” trademark for some of its businesses (clothing, footwear, headgear, games and toys.)
While the legal team fight it out (as per legal experts – having failed to oppose R-Adag’s applications at the registration stage, Pantaloon can’t sue the group for trademark infringement in the event R-Adag opens stores selling apparels.’- source) , it’s quite surprising to see a company like Reliance not creating their own brand, and instead trying to piggyback on somebody else’s.
Of course, Reliance’s argument is that they always go with ‘BIG’ brand and Big Bazar just fits in the scheme of things, but aren’t they bringing a damage to their own brand by using a familiar/competition’s name?
What’s your opinion?
@Ashish
small correction to be made in the below sentence
“Reliance has been granted the patent to use ‘“Reliance Big Bazar”
A patent is granted only for inventions, and reliance might have got trademark registered for “Reliance Big Bazar”
Regards,
Kartik
Thanks Kartik! Now you know the diff between ‘common’ vs. legal guys!
I am also a common guy (read engineer) who is into patent consulting
This is tricky – both can claim the right on the trademark
Reliance’s claim
BIG is the Trademark of Reliance
Bazaar is a generic word and notone can claim a right on generic words
Big Bazaar’s claim
Big Bazaar though is a generic word, since they are using the same over a long period of time, they can claim the mark under Honest Concurrent User
Big Bazaar also can raise an argument that the whole of their mark is used by Reliance in their name
End Result – they will get into a tricky battle but Big Bazar has an upper hand since they started using it first and the reliance Trademark is very confusingly and deceptively similar to theirs.
Interesting. I guess India should have system of trademarking in Hindi. That will prevent such issues and close the loophole of different spelling for Hindi/other Indian languages words in English.
Totally bad behavior by the Brothers Ambani. There is no way they should be allowed to get away with this kind of nonsense. I hope the courts teach them a lesson. I’d also be very curious to see who the lawyers were who filed this application for Reliance. (Have they or their families or staff ever shopped or driven, walked by a Big Bazaar?) They should also be held accountable for such frivolous filings.
Puneet, your suggestion is good but it won’t prevent such issues much less close any loopholes. In English, people choose “kute” names all the time, e.g. “Kabab Korner” Unless you are suggesting a ban on Kreativity:)
R-ADAG has a non-compete agreement with Reliance Retail. Mukesh has clearly
said that they will explore online / tele / other modes of retailing. Did they exclude other modes in of retailing in the NCA that R-ADAG is ready to jump in ?
This was not expected from such a huge company like Reliance. If they wanted to retain the BIG prefix, there were numerous names available.
Well what else can one expect from Reliance? Be it Mukesh or Anil.
What’s wrong? In fact, words like bazar or bazzar should not be allowed to trademarked.
Yusuf,
Maybe you can come up with a comprehensive list of what should be allowed then. Some reading up on the legal angles would be good first.
What is wrong in it ? I thought there already is a spelling mistake, and that is enough to take reliance through all the legalities.
i am surprised 2 know dat even d company like reliance can do dis cheap activity…….looks like anil sahab dont want 2 try innovations like his father did….