Can # Hashtags Be Protected As Intellectual Property In India?

In an ever-evolving era of digitization and mobile telephony, social media has become a quintessential platform for business development and marketing. Companies and stakeholders swear upon the dependency of businesses on social media marketing in the present times. Businesses are jumping on the band-wagon of social networking websites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. for increasing their outreach to prospective consumers around the world in ways, one more innovative than the other.

One such way is the usage of hashtags (#) to coin a new word or expression which can potentially connect large number of people regardless of boundaries on the basis of their feelings for their favorite brands. Examples may be found from the successful publicity campaigns of # ShareACoke by Coca-Cola ,# ShotOniPhone by Apple , #MyCalvins by Calvin Klein ,#JustDoIt by Nike, #ShareYourEars by Disney , #HereToCreate by Adidas , #IceBucketChallenge by ALS Association, to name a few .