Personal Name Trademarks in 2026 : Celebrity, Founder, and Public-figure Disputes

Introduction : A name is arguably the most intimate possession of an individual, yet the law increasingly views it as a mere commodity - a brand, a licensable domain, a source of tortious dispute. Indian courts have grappled with the question of when a celebrity name ceases to be a personal appellation and becomes a commercial asset subject to trademark-style protection. The implications of this distinction touch all manner of speech and commerce, from memes to merchandise and from satire to sponsored endorsements.

This note examines the doctrinal landscape and jurisprudential trends in Indian courts in cases concerning the appropriation of a celebrity’s, founder’s, or public figure’s name. It outlines the legal tests applied and the relevant case law, highlighting the areas in which Indian courts may be conflating distinct legal concepts unwarrantedly.

The Core Statutory Question: Is the Name a Source Identifier?

At the foundation of all disputes concerning the trademark protection of a personality’s name is one statutory question: whether the name in question has “distinctive character” for the purposes of Section 9 of the Trademarks Act, 1999. Trademarks law, quite reasonably, only protects source identifiers and nothing else. A source identifier is a sign that enables a consumer to identify the originating entity – a company, a label, or an individual - and to distinguish it from others. A personal name, on its own, is not a source identifier in the way that a registered trademark would be, for it typically serves to identify an individual, not a business entity. Indian courts have long held that surnames are “inherently weak” as trademarks, and the same logic applies to personal names.

The question then becomes whether usage of the name renders it something more than a mere personal appellation, something that grants it trademark-style protection. There is one provision in the Act that enables such protection: the first proviso to Section 9. Under the proviso, the distinctiveness of a sign may “be acquired by usage in relation to the goods or services in connection with which registration is sought.” In essence, if a name acquires secondary meaning in the minds of the consumer – i.e., it comes to identify a particular source - it may be granted protection.

This, then, is the fault line in all disputes over the unauthorised usage of celebrity names: is the name being used as a source identifier? And has it acquired secondary meaning? Indian courts have been inconsistent and contradictory in addressing this pivotal issue.

Two Trademark Doctrines Disguised as One

Much confusion in the case law discussed below arises from the fact that Indian courts have been applying two distinct doctrines, while often concurring with the application of only one. These are:

1. Passing off - the common law doctrine which prevents the misrepresentation of the origin of goods/services, and which has been partially codified in Sections 27 and 29 of the Trademarks Act.

2. Personality rights - a quasi-constitutional doctrine which protects individuals against the unauthorised commercial use of their persona, with some exceptions for matters of public record or public interest.

While passing off is concerned exclusively with the prevention of consumer confusion, personality rights are concerned with an individual’s right to control commercial uses of their identity. The two doctrines are distinct in their origins, remedies, and modes of proof. However, Indian courts have often conflated them, failing to distinguish between injunctions sought on the grounds of passing off and injunctions sought on the grounds of personality rights. This may have led to the issuance of overly broad injunctions, with too little regard for the free speech and expression of the injunction’s recipient.

The Foundational Case Law

India’s law on the protection of celebrities’ names is still young, and the foundational case law consists of only a handful of judgments.

Titan Industries v. Ramkumar Jewellers is the first judgment that articulated, in any detail, the threshold test for determining whether a personality’s name may be considered to have “distinctive character” and therefore to be eligible for trademark-style protection. The Delhi High Court observed that “a person who is a celebrity is one who has achieved status and popularity,” and accordingly, the use of his identity in commerce requires consent. More significantly, the Court elaborated on the circumstances in which a celebrity’s identity might be used for commercial purposes without his consent: when its use would cause confusion amongst consumers, or where “advertising, publicity or endorsement” of goods or services amounted to commercial usage.

DM Entertainment v. Baby Gift House, decided in 2010, addressed the usage of a singer’s name and image in the production of dolls and other toys, and held that such unauthorised usage was actionable passing off. This case has since become a precedent for all subsequent litigation in this area. The leading case in recent years, however, is undoubtedly Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India (2023). In this judgment, Justice Pratibha Singh passed an ex parte injunction against a company that was using Mr. Kapoor’s name and voice for merchandising and AI-based deepfake production. The judgment articulated a detailed test for determining whether the usage of a personality’s identity in commerce amounted to passing off, and it took particular care to distinguish between legitimate free speech and unauthorised usage that “tarnishes, blackens or jeopardises the image of the concerned person.”

This judgment has also helped further develop India’s trademark law: while Section 9 explicitly prohibits the registration of “name of a person,” it implicitly permits it if such usage “has acquired distinctiveness by virtue of its acquired secondary meaning.” Justice Singh’s test therefore also serves to delineate between the commercial usage of a name as a source identifier (and hence a trademark) and its usage as a mere reference or description.

Jackie Shroff and the BHIDU Split

If one case stands out as the most illustrative example of the doctrine of passing off as it currently exists in India, it is surely Jaikishan Kakubhai Saraf v. The Peppy Store (2024). The dispute in this case arose out of an unauthorised usage of Jackie Shroff’s registered trademark BHIDU, in the production of goods and the operation of a restaurant. However, the dispute was not limited to trademarks: the complainants also sought, and were granted, an injunction against a YouTuber who had created a meme titled “Thug Life” commenting on Jackie Shroff’s career. The injunction was not granted, and the reasons for this are instructive: the Court observed that YouTubers’ activities are “internet meme culture” and have “grown in leaps and bounds,” and therefore such injunctions should be granted “sparingly” lest “a chilling effect is created on free speech and expression of opinion.”

In short, the Court acknowledged the free speech concerns and granted an injunction only as to those parts of the suit that related to the commercial exploitation of Jackie Shroff’s mark. This judgment is particularly valuable because it demonstrates, in detail, how Indian courts evaluate the First Amendment-style concerns in passing off disputes. By the same token, it also demonstrates how such concerns are routinely outweighed by the passing off concerns if a mark is indeed used in commerce as a source identifier. The split in the judgment demonstrates why one must always consider the manner of usage when evaluating a dispute over the commercial use of a celebrity’s name: it is the manner of usage that determines whether a mark has indeed been used as a source identifier.

When the Founder’s Name Is the Company Name

Few of the cases discussed so far concern trademarks or passing off in the proper sense of the term. They all relate to the commercial use of the celebrity’s name as a source identifier, but in most cases, the celebrity in question is an actor, a musician, or a former politician. There is a separate and distinct line of case law that concerns founders of organisations whose personal names have been adopted by the companies they founded and trademarked.

A prominent example of this trend is Ashneer Grover and the recent controversy surrounding the BharatPe dispute. For founders whose reputation and personal brand are inextricably linked with the company they founded, a dispute concerning the unauthorised usage of their name as a source identifier by a co-founder presents novel and unprecedented challenges. The manner in which such disputes are resolved will have ramifications for all startups and emerging businesses, for in most cases, the reputation of a company is inseparable from the reputation of its founder(s).

The 2026 Developments and “Dynamic+ Injunctions”

The year 2026 marked the next stage in the evolution of India’s passing off jurisprudence. In April 2026, Delhi High Court issued a number of orders concerning the unauthorised usage of personality’s attributes in AI applications, including the “deepfake” voices and images. In particular, businessman Sanjiv Goenka and actor Allu Arjun were both granted ex parte injunctions against the usage of their “distinctive” voice, and several other injunctions – including those against Vivek Oberoi, Jubin Nautiyal, Shilpa Shetty, and Swami Ramdev – contain language relating to “Proprietary Personality Rights” and the "Dynamic Injunctions” that have since become the subject of much discussion.

In India, injunctions have always been the preferred remedy in passing off disputes. As such, injunctive relief is typically granted ex parte – without the knowledge or input of the defendant – and it is only later that the opposite party is heard. Injunctions, therefore, have always enjoyed considerable leniency, and the language in the 2026 orders reflects this trend, while also reflecting the fact that the threat of injunctions is being used to deter AI-powered “appropriation” of personalities’ image, in ways that go beyond traditional trademark and passing off laws.

“Dynamic+ Injunctions”

were introduced to address the fact that AI-generated content could be easily replicated and re-posted online, with minimal effort. The usual remedies - injunctive relief, damages, compensation - are largely ineffective in such circumstances, and so the courts have begun to adopt a dynamic approach - removing content from social media platforms, requesting its deletion from hosting services, and so forth.

Karan Johar’s “Toodles” and the Secondary Meaning of Nicknames

The most interesting development, however, was the Delhi High Court’s decision to grant injunctions in several cases concerning Karan Johar’s “KJo” and “Toodles.” In all these cases, the courts were considering whether a nickname or a catchphrase could acquire the same level of protection as a personal name – in other words, whether “distinctive character” could be acquired by a nickname or a catchphrase in the same manner as a full name. The case law suggests that this is possible, although the courts are cautious when it comes to nicknames that are clearly not used consistently (“Toodles” appears to be a catchphrase as much as a nickname, and it is not clear whether it has been adopted by the wider public). In the coming years, it will be interesting to see whether “KJo” is deemed to be a nickname capable of acquiring secondary meaning and thus being eligible for trademark-style protection.

Academic Criticism of Injunctions for Image Rights

It goes without saying that India’s jurisprudence on image rights is far from settled, and the most notable criticism concerns the widespread use of ex parte injunctions and the failure to consider the free speech and expression of the injunction’s recipient.

The Critique: Overprotection at the Cost of Expression

Numerous law journals have published scathing editorials on the practice of ex parte injunctions in passing off cases, observing that Indian courts routinely fail to apply the tests set out in Section 2(1)(i)(iv)-(v) of the Trademarks Act or to address the limitations and exceptions set out in R. Rajagopal’s Auto Shankar case. In essence, the criticism is that Indian courts are failing to distinguish between trademarks and passing off in general and image rights in particular, and that the injunctive practice favours celebrities and public figures in ways that may be unduly restrictive of free speech or expression.

The concern is not without foundation. Courts routinely grant injunctions ex parte, with little regard for the rights and interests of the opposite party. In the passing off cases, injunctions are granted primarily to prevent consumer confusion. However, confusion cannot arise if a name is used descriptively or referentially: it always arises from the use of a name as a source identifier. Confusion may be a factor in trademarks disputes, but trademarks are purely commercial entities, and so trademarks disputes are always concerned with protecting source identifiers and preventing consumer confusion.

By contrast, image rights cases often concern the use of a name in a manner that goes beyond its commercial usage, and they often involve the use of a name as a mere reference or description. This is what distinguished the “Thug Life” meme in the Jackie Shroff case from the other allegations in the same case. This is why the passing off analysis always begins with an assessment of the manner of usage – which is why the source-identifier test set out in Section 9 of the Trademarks Act and the passing off tests in Sections 27 and 29 are critical to image rights disputes. In this sense, India’s jurisprudence on image rights is in many ways indistinguishable from its jurisprudence on trademarks. Both doctrines are concerned with protecting source identifiers and preventing consumer confusion, and in most cases, the two areas of law intersect.

Conclusion

India’s trademark law jurisprudence is being shaped by a steady stream of high-profile passing off cases. At the foundation of these cases is the simple question of whether a name, catchphrase, or nickname can be considered to have “distinctive character” for the purposes of trademark registration. Section 9 provides one test, but in most cases - particularly those involving celebrities or public figures - passing off is invoked to prevent the unauthorised usage of a name as a source identifier. The passing off doctrine has always been India’s primary mechanism for protecting source identifiers, and so it governs trademarks disputes.

Indian courts have been consistent in holding that unauthorised usage of a name as a source identifier infringes passing off rights and is therefore subject to injunctive relief. At the same time, Indian courts also routinely observe that unauthorised usage of a name as a mere reference or a descriptor does not infringe passing off rights and is also not prohibited by the Constitution. This is why passing off cases always involve a detailed examination of the manner of usage, and why courts are always required to determine whether the usage in question transforms a name into a source identifier. A name ceases to be a source identifier when it is used descriptively or referentially - when it is used to describe the characteristics of a product or service, as opposed to distinguishing it from competing products or services.

Author: Shambhavi Agrawal, in case of any queries please contact/write back to us via email to chhavi@khuranaandkhurana.com or at  Khurana & Khurana, Advocates and IP Attorney.

Endnotes

1. Trade Marks Act, 1999, s 9(1)(a).

2. Trade Marks Act, 1999, s 9, proviso.

3. Trade Marks Act, 1999, ss 27 and 29.

4. K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1.

5. R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu, (1994) 6 SCC 632 ("Auto Shankar case").

6. Titan Industries Ltd. v. Ramkumar Jewellers, 2012 SCC OnLine Del 2382.

7. DM Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. v. Baby Gift House, 2010 SCC OnLine Del 4790.

8. Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India, 2023 SCC OnLine Del 6914.

9. Jaikishan Kakubhai Saraf (Jackie Shroff) v. The Peppy Store, 2024, Delhi High Court (order on interim injunction).

10. Trade Marks Act, 1999, s 2(1)(i)(iv)-(v) (false trade descriptions).

11. Reports on Ashneer Grover's trademark filings over his personal name/image amid the BharatPe dispute (business press coverage, 2023).

12. Delhi High Court orders, April 2026, in matters concerning Sanjiv Goenka and Allu Arjun addressing AI-driven exploitation of personality attributes.

13. Delhi High Court injunction orders, early 2026, involving Allu Arjun, Vivek Oberoi, Jubin Nautiyal, Shilpa Shetty, and Swami Ramdev, introducing "Proprietary Personality Rights" and "Dynamic+" injunction frameworks.

14. Karan Johar litigation concerning the nickname "KJo" and the catchphrase "toodles" (Delhi High Court, ongoing proceedings, 2026).