Bombay HC Stops Xtasea From Using ‘Bigg Boss’ Trademark

The Bombay High Court has restrained event management company Andaman Xtasea Events from infringing or using any brand identical to ‘Bigg Boss’ in any manner.

The order came in response to a case filed by Endemol Shine Nederland which had filed a case of an alleged infringement of its intellectual property rights with regards to their registered trademarks for ‘Bigg Boss’ and ‘Big Brother’, both as word marks and label marks.

The plaintiff Endemol Shine had complained that the defendant (Andaman Xtasea) promoted a show called ‘Bigg Boss’ on a local television channel in the Andaman islands, which not only infringed the format adopted by Endemol for their original TV show by the same in mainland India.

Endemol’s petition also stated that the defendant company Andaman Exstasea’s tagline ‘Andaman Isse Apna Hi Ghar Samjho’ (Andaman, consider this your own home) is also adapted from the original tagline ‘India Isse Apna Hi Ghar Samjho’ (India, consider this your own home only).

After Endemol sent a notice to the Andaman-based company, Extasea informed Endemol that it would not use ‘Bigg Boss’ in any manner.

However, Extasea changed the name of its shows from ‘Andaman Bigg Boss’ to ‘Andaman Big Bro’ which also infringed Endemol’s trademark after which Endemol approached the court to restrain Extasea from using it in any manner.