Many Indian businesses assume that once a logo, label, or packaging design has been registered as a trademark, the underlying artwork is automatically theirs under copyright law as well. A judgment from the Delhi High Court, reported in the first week of October 2026, is a useful reminder that this assumption can be wrong, and the gap between the two rights can cost a brand owner dearly.
The Dispute Over the “CAMEL” Label
The case, Japan Tobacco Inc. and Anr. v. The Central Wearhouse and Anr., arose out of a petition before the Delhi High Court seeking rectification of the Register of Copyrights under Section 50 of the Copyright Act, 1957. Japan Tobacco Inc., which markets CAMEL cigarettes internationally, and its affiliate that licenses the CAMEL brand for clothing and accessories, sought to remove a copyright registration held by an Indian garment company for the “CAMEL” and “CAMEL COLLECTION” artistic work. That registration, dating back to 1997, claimed the artwork had first been published in 1992.
Japan Tobacco’s case rested substantially on its long-standing use of the CAMEL name and camel device on cigarettes since the early twentieth century, and on garments through licensing arrangements from the late 1970s onward. It argued that the respondent had simply copied existing CAMEL artwork rather than creating anything original, and that the mandatory procedural steps for copyright registration had not been followed.
The respondent countered that Japan Tobacco had never actually sold, advertised, or manufactured CAMEL-branded garments in India, that its Indian trademark application for the mark on clothing had been filed only on a “proposed to be used” basis and later withdrawn, and that its own design team had created the label independently in 1992.
Why the Court Ruled Against Japan Tobacco
Justice Tushar Rao Gedela framed the real question as one of authorship and first ownership under Section 17 of the Copyright Act, which vests copyright in an original artistic work in the person who actually created it, subject to limited statutory exceptions for employment and commissioned works. The Court held, in terms that practitioners should note carefully, that Section 17 contains no deeming provision by which ownership of a trademark registration translates into ownership of the copyright in the artwork that forms part of that mark.
In other words, holding a registered trademark, or even having used a mark for decades, does not by itself prove who drew the artistic work, when, or for whom. That is a separate factual question, and the burden of proving it rests on the party asserting first ownership.
On the evidence, the Court found that Japan Tobacco had not discharged this burden. Its proof of creation consisted largely of historical books about the CAMEL cigarette brand, which were not properly proved as evidence and which the respondent had specifically denied. The Court also invoked Section 48 of the Copyright Act, which presumes that the particulars entered in the Register of Copyrights, including ownership, are correct unless the contrary is established. Statements made by the respondent in an earlier, unrelated trademark suit were found to be equivocal at best, and in any event concerned trademark rights rather than copyright authorship. The rectification petition was accordingly dismissed, and the respondent’s 1997 copyright registration was left undisturbed.
The Principle for Brand Owners and Practitioners
The judgment restates, in a commercially significant setting, a distinction that is easy to blur in practice: trademark rights and copyright in an artistic work are separate rights, created and proved differently, even when they attach to the same piece of artwork, such as a logo or a product label.
A trademark is protected through registration (or through use, under passing off principles) as a badge of trade origin for goods or services. Copyright in that same logo, as an “original artistic work” under Section 13 of the Act, belongs to whoever created it, or to an employer or client who commissioned it under a written agreement satisfying the Act’s assignment requirements. A company can own a famous, long-registered trademark and still have no enforceable copyright claim over the artwork embedded in it, if it cannot show who made the artwork and under what arrangement.
This has practical consequences that go well beyond cigarette and garment labels:
- Businesses that commission logo or packaging designs from freelance designers, agencies, or in-house teams should ensure there is a clear, written assignment of copyright at the time of creation, rather than relying on an implicit understanding that the commissioning party will automatically own the work.
- When a brand, along with its trademarks, is acquired, licensed, or restructured across group entities, copyright in associated artwork should be separately tracked and assigned. A trademark assignment deed does not, without more, carry copyright in the artwork with it.
- Design files, early drafts, correspondence with designers, and dated records of the creative process are valuable evidence if ownership is ever challenged. Reliance on brand history or market reputation alone, as Japan Tobacco’s case shows, may not be enough.
- A copyright registration, once granted, benefits from a statutory presumption of correctness under Section 48. A party seeking to challenge an existing registration through rectification should be prepared to lead cogent, properly proved evidence of its own prior authorship, not merely assert superior trademark rights or longer market presence.
- Where multiple group entities have historically used a mark or label across different product categories or territories, internal documentation of who originated the artwork, and under what licence or assignment, should be maintained from the outset rather than reconstructed years later in litigation.
Takeaway
Registering a mark protects a business against confusingly similar use of that mark in trade. It does not, on its own, secure the separate bundle of rights that copyright law gives to the artwork within that mark. Brand owners who treat the two protections as interchangeable may find, as in this case, that their trademark portfolio offers no shortcut to proving copyright ownership when it actually matters.
By Sevenelementz Legal Associates LLP, Advocates & IP Attorneys, Chennai.
Disclaimer: This article is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Laws and their interpretation may change, and individual circumstances vary. For advice specific to your situation, please consult Sevenelementz Legal Associates LLP or another qualified advocate.