{"id":4168,"date":"2025-04-17T18:04:48","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T18:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=4168"},"modified":"2025-04-17T18:04:48","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T18:04:48","slug":"rcb-takes-uber-to-court-over-use-of-trademark-in-promotional-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=4168","title":{"rendered":"RCB takes Uber to court over use of trademark in promotional video"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Royal Challengers Sports Pvt Ltd, the owner of IPL franchise Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), has filed a lawsuit against Uber India Systems Pvt Ltd in the Delhi High Court, accusing the company of unauthorised use and distortion of its trademarked slogan and team name in a recent advertisement promoting its bike-taxi service.<\/p>\n<p>The advertisement, titled \u201cBaddies in Bengaluru\u201d, was released on April 5 and features Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) player Travis Head, a former RCB team member. The video has garnered over 1.3 million views on YouTube.<\/p>\n<p>RCB\u2019s legal team argued before Justice Saurabh Banerjee that the ad infringes on the team\u2019s popular slogan \u201cEe Sala Cup Namde\u201d (This year, the cup is ours) and presents a distorted version of their official name, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, in a manner that they claim \u201cmocks and dilutes\u201d the franchise\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n<p>In the ad, Travis Head\u2019s character is shown entering a stadium logistics room and spray-painting \u2018Royal Challengers Bangalore\u2019, alongside branding the matchup as \u201cBengaluru vs Hyderabad\u201d, which RCB alleges is a veiled reference to the upcoming IPL fixture. The team claims this amounts to trademark disparagement, citing online backlash and fan ridicule.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a targeted attempt to mock and dilute the identity of Royal Challengers Bengaluru,\u201d RCB\u2019s counsel told the court.<\/p>\n<p>Uber, however, defended the commercial as a \u201clighthearted promotional campaign\u201d meant to highlight the speed advantage of Uber Moto in Bengaluru\u2019s notorious traffic. The company denied direct trademark usage and stated that the ad&#8217;s references were generic and humorous.<\/p>\n<p>Uber\u2019s legal team claimed the ad plays on Travis Head\u2019s character name \u201cHyderabadi\u201d to suggest that SRH would \u201croyally challenge\u201d RCB in their match on May 13, describing the campaign as an exercise of commercial free speech.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRCB has severely and massively underestimated the Indian public\u2019s sense of humour, including that of their own fanbase,\u201d Uber\u2019s counsel said, adding, \u201cRCB should combat humour with humour, not with a lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>RCB maintained that the issue was not humour, but the unauthorised commercial use of its brand identity, which holds substantial promotional and financial value.<\/p>\n<p>After hearing arguments from both parties, Justice Banerjee reserved judgment on RCB\u2019s request for an interim injunction, noting the subjective nature of interpreting satire.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe moment you ask a person, a layman or a court to see the ad and decipher, I can form or have an opinion which is different than yours. There lies the issue of injunction,\u201d the judge remarked.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Royal Challengers Sports Pvt Ltd, the owner of IPL franchise Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), has filed a lawsuit against Uber India Systems Pvt Ltd in the Delhi High Court, accusing the company of unauthorised use and distortion of its trademarked slogan and team name in a recent advertisement promoting its bike-taxi service. The advertisement, titled [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}