Movie Titles — Protected Under Indian Law?

With the advent of the digital era and consequent ease of accessibility, the entertainment industry has increasingly become a larger part of an individual's life. With large viewership and fan-base for movies one among the few key decisions the entertainment industry often battles with is the naming of a movie.

The title of a movie is seen as an identifier of the work as a whole. Titles are integral, particularly from a marketing perspective as they perform the function of catching the audience's attention, set the tone for movies and possibly also accord recall factor to movies. Some memorable movie titles include the iconic Sholay and The Godfather. Given the brand and recall value that a title can generate, one may construe it as his/her intellectual property and thus it becomes essential that one prevents its unauthorized appropriation by others.