ASI, Nanotechnology Association to sue Tata Group

Saturday, 29 August 2009 15:52

Written by essbee, onion uttapan news

Close on the heels of Tata Sons filing a case against travel website oktatabyebye.com for infringement of their TATA brand name,  International association of Nanotechnology (IANANO) has filed a case against Tata Motors for use of word 'Nano'  for its new model of economy cars. INANO has contended that Tata Motors have no rights or legitimate interest to use the word 'Nano' which according to the association should be used only for technological products or gadgets that use nanotechnolgy.

In a statement released to press, IANANO has contended that Tata's Nano car doesn't use nanotechnolgy, which is a system of transforming matter, energy and information on nanometer scale i.e atomic scale. A typical nanotechnolgy devices measures less than 100 nanometer (One nanometer = one billionth of a meter) in size. 'Clearly, using the word 'Nano' for a vehicle that is only slightly smaller than a regular small car is a gross violation of the scientific meaning of the word'  the statement said.

Meanwhile, Archeological Society of India (ASI) which manages the ancient monument built by Shah Jehan, Taj Mahal is considering suing the Tatas for theft and usage of the name 'Taj Mahal' as a brand name for selling tea and attracting western tourists towards its 5-star hotels.

The ASI chief  K.N.Srivastava  argued that since Tata Sons have got a positive verdict by contending that "the purpose of utilizing the domain name oktatabyebye.com appears purely to funnel Internet traffic and thereby bring it to the website "www.makemytrip.com" for commercial gain.", the Archeological Society of India has a legitimate reason for suing the Tata group, since it can be argued that the purpose of naming its 5-star hotels as 'Taj Mahal Hotels' was to attract western tourists through deceptive use of the term 'Taj Mahal'.

"Millions of tourists from remote corners of the world who plan to make honeymoon trips to Taj Mahal and search for information on internet end up learning about Taj group of Hotels. Believing that this group of hotels is associated with the Taj monument, they also book hotel rooms with them. Without doubt, Tatas are misusing the term for fishing new customers and then diverting them towards their hotels for commercial gain." said the ASI Chief.

After WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) awarded the ownership of the domain oktatabyebye.com to Tata Sons, there are reports that many more companies are planning to file cases with WIPO against unauthorized use of their registered trademark.

According to rumors, Bata India may sue 'Batata Vada' vendors for using the word 'Bata' which is confusingly similar to its 'Bata' brand.

Where would this madness end?

Will Udipi restaurants sue Onionuttapam.com for diverting internet traffic for the popular snack Onion Uttapam towards the website? Would WIPO accept a frivolous claim that foodies searching for places to eat Onion Uttapam end up spending hours on this site, forgetting their desire to eat the dish thereby causing revenue loss to Udipi restaurants?

Comments (1)

naren: ...

Tata's defense is that most of their engineers have nanometric brains, as evidenced by the lemon in their crown, the Indica. You know, I think they might just be able to successfully defend it.

1

August 31, 2009

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