The High Court of India has declared that Indian Hotels Company Limited brand Taj Hotels, Resorts & Palaces possesses the right to claim the name “Taj” as a company trademark, thus avoiding infringement of a name that is recognized in India and beyond.
According to New Delhi-based legal website Bar & Bench, the Delhi High Court on March 19 declared that the “Taj mark and related marks belonging [to the company and] denoting the luxury hotel chain [are] well-known trademarks under the Trade Marks Act, 1999.”
Legal representatives of Taj Hotels said its case centered on “several individuals, accusing them of trademark infringement, copyright violations and passing off their services under the IHCL brand,” according to the Economic Times of India.
New Delhi-based Verdictum, a publication that covers Indian legal issues, quoted Delhi High Court Bench of Justice Amit Bansal as ruling on the legal case The Indian Hotels Company Limited v. Gaurav Roy Bhatt and Anr., that “with the long duration for which the Taj marks have been in use by the plaintiff, wide geographical area of their use, their knowledge among the general public and their goodwill and reputation due to the extensive promotion, publicity and extensive revenue generated by the plaintiff, in India as well as other countries, the Taj marks have achieved the status of well-known trademarks."
Taj Hotels has been a hotel brand since 1903, when the founder of IHCL’s parent company Tate Group Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata opened Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace in December of that month. That hotel remains in operation and today has 285 rooms. It was last renovated in March 2023, according to CoStar.
CoStar data shows Mumbai-based IHCL has 90 hotels in operation under the Taj brand. It has several other hotel brands, including Ginger, Tree of Life and Vivanta.
Its last hotel under the Taj brand to open was on Feb. 20, the 115-room Taj Mussoorie Foothills in Dehradun, the capital of the state of Uttarakhand.