INDIA'S largest private airline, Jet Airways, has bought back the 'right, title and interest' in the "Jet Airways" trademark from Jet Enterprise (JEPL), a company owned by its promoter Naresh Goyal along with Mr Hasmukh Gardi, for a one-time fee of $7 million.
While Jet Airways is one of the best-known brands in this part of the world, it did not own its trademark. In fact, in the red herring prospectus filed for its initial public offering (IPO) earlier this year, the airline had said the trademark and name "Jet Airways" has been licensed to it on an exclusive, non-assignable basis by JEPL.
The licence agreement was signed on October 15, 2000. Under the registered trademark agreement, Jet Airways is required to pay a licence fee to JEPL ranging between 0.1-0.2% of its gross revenues. However, the airline had also mentioned later that it proposed to buy back the trademark for good. With the buyback, the licence agreements between JEPL and Jet Airways have accordingly come to an end.
The airline's COO, Peter Leuthi, said it was in the interest of a rapidly growing organisation like Jet Airways to completely own its brandname/trademark. Last year, the airline carried over eight million passengers with a fleet of 42 planes. It clocked a top line of nearly $800 million (Rs 3,447 crore). Currently, it operates 275 daily flights to 43 destinations, including five international, with a fleet of 50 planes. It is now slotted to acquire between 20-40 wide-bodied planes (half are firm, rest is still optional) along with 10 Boeing 737s. Over the next five years, the airline is tipped to fly a fleet of 85-95 aircraft and can notch revenues of $1.7-2 billion, according to industry analysts.
Incidentally, JEPL had earlier sought to have the trademark registered in places like the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, UAE and Mauritius, but its attempts have run into rough weather in the UK and US. The UK case has been filed by ConocoPhillips. ConocoPhillips has said the trademark application filed by JEPL (The Jet Airways joy of flying) is similar to the JET trademark. The matter is still being heard before the trademark authorities of the UK but has no impact on the airline's operations.
The airline already operates a daily flight to London, which it proposes to double this winter besides introducing a thrice-weekly flight to Birmingham.
Another case had been filed in the US by a Delaware-based company, Jet Airways, which has objected to the trademark, Jet Airways — The Joy of Flying, and the logo of the rising sun. The US company has objected on the ground of likelihood of confusion with an existing service mark registration by it. The US company's CEO has also served a notice that Jet Enterprises abandon its plans for registering in the US. The matter is pending before the local authorities.
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