What every brand owner should learn before naming a product after what it does

Picture this. You launch a skincare product. You name it after exactly what it does, something simple and catchy that customers will instantly understand. Years pass. The brand grows. The sales figures look wonderful. Then, one day, a court tells you that the name was never really yours to own in the first place.

That is exactly what happened to a well known skincare brand this June, when the Delhi High Court cancelled the registered trademark “D-TAN.” The ruling carries a lesson every founder, marketer, and business owner in India needs to hear before they fall in love with a name.

The Story Behind the Case

A company called Visage Beauty and Health Care Pvt. Ltd. had registered the mark “D-TAN” back in 2018, claiming to have used it since 2009 for its skincare products. Over the years, the brand did well. Court papers show sales of more than Rs 51.8 crore in a single financial year.

In April 2023, Visage sent a legal notice to Honasa Consumer Ltd., the company behind the popular “Aqualogica” range. The complaint? Honasa was selling a sunscreen called “Aqualogica Detan + Dewy Sunscreen,” and Visage believed this infringed its D-TAN trademark.

Honasa did not back down. Instead, it turned the tables. It argued that “D-TAN” was never a true brand name at all. It was simply two ordinary words, “de” and “tan,” stitched together to describe exactly what the product does: remove tan from the skin. Every skincare company, Honasa said, should be free to describe its products this way. So Honasa asked the Delhi High Court to strike D-TAN off the trademark register altogether.

What the Court Decided

Justice Tushar Rao Gedela agreed with Honasa. The Court held that D-TAN simply describes what the product is meant to do, remove tan, and words like this belong to everyone in the trade, not to one company alone. The law is clear on this point. A trademark exists to tell customers who made a product. It is not meant to fence off ordinary, descriptive language that every business needs to explain its own goods.

Visage tried to defend its trademark by pointing to its impressive sales numbers and years of advertising. The Court was not convinced. Making money from a name, the judge explained, does not automatically prove that customers think of your company alone when they hear that name. To keep a descriptive word as a trademark, a business must show real evidence, such as customer surveys or market research, proving that the public associates that word only with them. Sales figures and accountant certificates are not enough on their own.

With that, the Court ordered the Registrar of Trade Marks to cancel D-TAN and remove it from the register within four weeks.

Case: Honasa Consumer Ltd. v. Visage Beauty and Health Care Pvt. Ltd. & Anr., C.O. (COMM.IPD-TM) 215/2023, Delhi High Court, decided 19 June 2026.

Why This Matters to You

This is not just a story about two skincare companies. It is a warning worth reading carefully if you are building a brand, or already running one.

  • If your brand name describes what your product does, whitens, tans, cures, cleans, cools, you may be standing on the same shaky ground Visage stood on.
  • Spending money on advertising and building strong sales does not, by itself, protect a descriptive name. You need proof that customers connect that word with you alone, not just proof that your business is doing well.
  • A trademark certificate is not a lifetime guarantee. Years after registration, a competitor can still ask a court to cancel it, exactly as happened here.

The Real Takeaway

Choosing a brand name feels like a marketing decision. It is really a legal one too. The right name protects your business for years. The wrong one can leave you defending a lawsuit, or worse, losing the very name you built your company around.

Before you fall in love with a name, or before you spend one more rupee defending one you already have, it pays to have it checked properly.

By Mamta Sharma, Advocate