Can the name of Patanjali, the sage who wrote yoga sutras centuries ago, be trademarked?
In an unusual case, a mobile app of a city-based yoga guru featuring his chants of Patanjali sutras has been slapped with a trademark infringement notice by the Patanjali Ayurved Ltd of Baba Ramdev.
The app ‘Patanjali Yoga Sutra’, designed by Chennai-based content developer Geethanjali of Super Audio Madras Ltd, available for download on the Apple store, features the chanting of Patanjali yoga sutras by Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani, director, Centre for Yoga Therapy Education & Research (CYTER), Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth University.
In the notice sent to the developer, legal team at Apple and Mr. Bhavanani, the Patanjali company said that Patanjali being its trademark (Intellectual Property Rights), it had the exclusive rights for use and no one could use these without the company’s authorisation.
The representative of Patanjali Ayurved Ltd, makers of ayurvedic medicines and herbal personal care products, said: “We are concerned with the recent proliferation of fraudulent and infringing activities of people who are trying to make illegal profit by offering apps posing as they are part of the Patanjali group. ”
It was contended that the sutra app was not connected/associated with the company or its agents and therefore infringed on the intellectual property rights of the company.
“The reported app is using our registered trade mark without any authority. Patanjali word and logo are registered under the Trade Mark Act 1999 and these people are taking the undue advantage from the goodwill earned by Patanjali. Based on the above mentioned points we request you to kindly remove the related app as soon as possible,” the notice said.
‘In public domain’
Mr. Bhavanani said he found it “absolutely ridiculous that Maharishi Patanjali, that wonderful and humane person who gifted us the whole yoga darshan, is now being put into a box and people are claiming that they can trademark him and you cannot even use the term ‘Patanjali’.
Later, in a formal response sent to Patanjali Ayurved and Apple, Super Audio Madras said the application Patanjali Yoga Sutras does not infringe on the complainant's rights, “as it is based on traditional chanting of the Sanskrit text authored more than 2,000 years ago by the great Maharishi Patanjali who codified the yoga darshan through these teachings.”
These ancient traditional teachings and the text Patanjali Yoga Sutra and Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are in public domain and documented through the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library of the Government of India, it was pointed out.
The respondent ruled out any intention to infringe on the complainant's rights and had not used their trademark nor logo. “The use of the name Patanjali in our app purely refers to the great sage who authored the Yoga Sutra and has nothing to do with Patanjali Ayurved Ltd. We have no intentions to pose as if we are part of the group and its companies and have no mala fide intention to cause damage to the reputation and goodwill of their brands.”