Financial Times

Maharajas lose battle over MTV logo
A 14-year dispute over rights to the MTV 1ogo between Viacom, owners of US-based Music Television, and Sri Lanka's Maharaja Group ended recently with the Supreme Court ruling in favour of Viacom.

In a judgement, the court said the registration of the MTV logo by the Maharaja Group was contrary to provisions of the Code of Intellectual Property and overturned a lower court ruling approving the Director of Intellectual Property's decision to allow that registration.

Music Television is a global music television station. Viacom and Maharaja applied at almost the same time to have the MTV logo registered in Sri Lanka in May 1991. In an appeal filed in the Supreme Court, Viacom had sought an order overturning a decision by the Registrar to allow Maharaja to register the MTV logo and also the Commercial High Court endorsing that decision.

Chief Justice Sarath Silva with two other judges, in their verdict, said the order of the Commercial High Court judge was filled with irrelevant considerations and without due regard to the law on trade marks.

They said the Registrar had registered both trademarks with a disclaimer that no party is entitled to exclusive use of the letters MTV. This is contrary to the spirit and substance of the law on Trade Marks, the order said, adding that "if both Music TV and Maharaja TV are permitted to use the mark MTV it is hard to understand how viewers could know the correct source of the service." It said both marks so closely resemble one another that the consumer/viewer is likely to get confused.

K. Kanag-Isvaran with Harsha Cabraal instructed by Manilal Adihetty of Julius & Creasy appeared for Viacom while Romesh de Silva with Hiran de Alwis instructed by G.G. Arulpragasam appeared for the Maharaja Group and State Counsel S Barrie for the Director of Intellectual Property.

Back to Business