The Delhi High Court has made an appropriate decision in regards to a lawsuit bought by Time Warner against Mumbai-based production house Mirchi Movies over trademark violation. The background -- Mirchi Movies is about to release a movie by the name of Hari Puttar, the opening of which was delayed two weeks because of the court case, and also because the Turner channels did not carry advertising for the movie. Time Warner is of the opinion that the title Hari Puttar is too close to Harry Potter and started court action -- although apparently they've known of the title for three years, so why they waited so long to kick up a fuss is beyond me.
Anyway, Justice Reva Khetrapal ruled that "the possibility of an unlettered audience viewing a Harry Potter movie is remote, to say the least. An illiterate or semi-literate movie viewer, in case he ventures to see a film by the name of Hari Puttar, would never be able to relate the same with a Harry Potter film or book" reports Indian Express. I don't know how big Harry Potter is in India so I cannot say whether the naming of the Indian movie was purposefully intended to resemble Rowling's title, but I'm sure it was brought to their attention and I'm sure they didn't think it would hurt. Mind you, it's a bit silly to try to ban anything in any language that even vaguely resembles an English trademark.
This is clearly the right ruling because trademarks were never meant to give a person or company a monopoly on a word, phrase or image. They are intended to prevent the general public mistakenly confusing something as relating to the trademark holder. As long as there is no chance of confusion there is no trademark infringement. In this case anyone who sees any advertising at all for Hari Puttar will be quite clear that there is no connection with Harry Potter -- LA Times has the trailer. I reckon the only way the connection was likely to have been made with most people is by Time Warner bringing it up. To that end I was going to advise everyone to see the movie just to annoy Time Warner, but from the trailer is appears to be a Home Alone remake with an Indian protagonist and a techno-rap soundtrack, so... don't.
Published by James Quintana Pearce.
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