Trademarks, Colourism and International Legal Standards​​

Ankit Malhotra and Tahhira Somal
Jindal Global Law School, India.

Volume IV, Issue I, 2021

The effects of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ Movement with its genesis on US soil seeped into countries such as India, Nigeria et al. where skin lightening creams came under flak. Countries such as the aforementioned spread across Africa, South Asia, Middle East, etc. are also where companies sold products named: White Beauty, Fine Fairness, Fair and Lovely, Light Complete, and so on. The controversy in India led to the company HUL changing its product name from ‘Fair and Lovely’ to ‘Glow and Lovely’. Therefore, this article aims to bring show the underbelly and underpinnings that stitch discrimination and trademarks. This will, furthermore, highlight the mechanism of Intellectual Property Rights as a means to protect the public interest in the social fora rather than locking horns with it.

DOI: http://doi.one/10.1732/IJLMH.25961