The blog has been authored by Parvathi Badrinath, an LLM. candidate specialising in intellectual property law, final year, at Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law, IIT Kharagpur

Introduction

Sonic branding is increasingly relevant to modern consumer experience. Sounds like the two-second “ta-dum” audio that precedes a Netflix title, or the payment confirmation chime of the PayTM UPI application, create an immediate association between a sound and its commercial source, precisely how a trademark is supposed to. While Indian trademark law is adequate for melodic compositions and jingles, it sits uneasily with short sonic assets that digital-age businesses rely upon, such as short notification tones, user interface sounds, and non-melodic audio cues. The Indian framework’s gaps do create unpredictability: registration may be obtainable yet remain legally fragile. This article analyzes possible challenges faced in registering short sonic identities under the Indian sound mark regime, drawing on comparative experience from the EU and the US.

Recognition of Sound Marks in India

The definitions of “mark” and “trademark” under Sections 2(m) and 2(zb) respectively of the Trade Marks Act, 1999, are broad enough to encompass sound marks. Sound marks are legally protectable, as demonstrated by Yahoo!’s yodel, which received India’s first sound mark registration in 2008, and latest examples like Taj Hotels’ sound mark in early 2026.

The Trade Marks Rules, 2017 formally laid out a procedure for sound mark applications. Rule 26(5) of the Trade Marks Rules, 2017, brought procedural clarity. It requires that an application for a sound mark must:

• State explicitly that the mark is a sound mark.
• Submit the sound in MP3 format, not exceeding thirty seconds on a medium allowing easy and clearly audible replaying.
• Accompany it with a graphical representation in the form of musical notations.

Beyond procedure, the primary substantive requirement is distinctiveness under Section 9 of the Act, which bars registration of marks devoid of any distinctive character. For sound marks, this means demonstrating that an average consumer perceives the sound as an indicator of commercial origin rather than mere ambient noise or a functional product feature. Distinctiveness may be either inherent or acquired through sustained use in trade, as evidenced by sales figures, advertising expenditure, and consumer surveys.

Why Yahoo Succeeded but Short Digital Sounds Cannot Easily Follow

The Yahoo yodel (listen here) is often cited as proof that Indian law can accommodate short sounds, but the difference is that the yodel is melodic. It has recognisable pitch, rhythm, and a human vocal quality that maps cleanly onto a conventional musical stave, satisfying Rule 26(5)’s graphical representation requirement. Short digital sounds, however, fall into two distinct categories, each presenting a different problem:

• For sounds that are genuinely atonal or electronically textured, a synthesiser sweep, or a layered digital texture with no fixed pitch like the MGM lion’s roar, Rule 26(5) creates practical difficulty for non-melodic sounds. A spectrogram or sonogram would be far more accurate.
• For sounds that are simple and pitched, a single chime or a two-note confirmation tone, notation may work technically, but distinctiveness becomes the problem. A two-second sound could be too simple to clear the distinctiveness bar. In Yahoo’s case, it had accumulated decades of global brand recognition before its Indian registration. This is not practically available to most streaming or fintech applicants at the point of seeking protection for a recently developed sonic identity.

The Yahoo yodel succeeded because it was melodic, graphically notatable (as in notation), and backed by enormous brand equity (distinctive). However, short digital sounds typically lack at least one of those three qualities.

Hurdles to Registering Short Sonic Identities in India

Graphical Representation

Rule 26(5) requires musical notation as the graphical representation. For sounds with a fixed, representable melody, this is workable. However, for sounds that are atonal or electronically textured, musical notation is inadequate. A spectrogram or sonogram would be more accurate, since these capture gradual pitch shifts, noise, and layered textures, rather than forcing them into the fixed, discrete notes of staff notation. However, India’s Rules offer no express guidance on whether these satisfy the graphical representation requirement, and no Indian judicial or Registry decision has addressed the question for such sounds to date.

The EU addressed the representation problem directly when Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 dispensed with the mandatory graphical representation requirement, permitting sound marks to be filed as audio files where the representation is clear, precise, self-contained, easily accessible, intelligible, durable, and objective. The USPTO in TMEP §807.09 does not require graphical representation in the form of musical notation, and an audio file plus written description suffices, which means non-melodic sounds face no representational barrier at the application stage in the US. India’s Rule 26(5) creates a barrier that the US and EU systems do not.

Distinctiveness

On distinctiveness, the draft Manual of Trade Marks Practice and Procedure, 2015, an administrative guidance document issued by the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks, lists categories of sound unlikely to be accepted without proof of factual distinctiveness, including very simple pieces of music consisting of only one or two notes. While the Manual is not legally binding, it points to a practical difficulty. Unlike word or device marks, where acquired distinctiveness can often be shown through sales figures, advertising, or consumer surveys, demonstrating that consumers have come to associate a short sound with a single source is inherently harder, given the absence of a visible sign for consumers to readily associate with a source.

In the US, the USPTO has registered short sounds such as Intel’s five-note chime. However, in some cases, such as In re Vertex Group LLC, 89 USPQ2d 1694, it held that sounds like electronic chirps or chimes are naturally emitted in the course of a product’s function, and consumers do not instinctively associate them with their commercial source, confirming the distinctiveness problem for short functional sounds.

In 2025, the General Court of the EU marked a shift by annulling the Board of Appeal’s decision rejecting the sound mark application filed by Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), the Berlin public transport operator, for a two-second bell-like jingle, stating that even a couple of notes can be inherently capable of distinguishing and confirming that brevity itself is not grounds for rejection.

Both the representation and distinctiveness problems are theoretically surmountable through alternative representation and acquired distinctiveness, respectively, but they create a practical burden that is considerably heavier for short digital sounds than for traditional jingles.

Functionality

The functionality bar adds a further layer of difficulty. The Registry may possibly deny the application where a sound communicates a functional message rather than indicating commercial origin. For example, a payment confirmation chime could be characterised as communicating a functional message that the transaction is complete, rather than indicating commercial origin. Analogous reasoning led Harley-Davidson to abandon its USPTO application for the V-twin engine sound around 2000, after six years of opposition from competitors who argued the sound was functional and non-distinctive, without the USPTO ever formally ruling on the application. The EUIPO and the Court of Justice of the European Union similarly rejected registration of the sound of a can being opened for beverages on the same grounds in Ardagh Metal Beverage Holdings GmbH & Co KG v. EUIPO, Case T-668/19. The same analysis could plausibly apply to notification sounds under Indian law, though no Registry decision has yet addressed this directly.

Lack of Guidelines

Unlike the EUIPO’s examination guidelines on sound marks, which are detailed, publicly available, and updated periodically, India lacks any published examination guideline addressing what the Trade Marks Registry will accept as adequate representation for non-melodic sounds, or what quantum of use evidence suffices for acquired distinctiveness of short digital sounds in the streaming and payments context.

Indian applicants must navigate by inference from the non-binding draft 2015 Manual. The uncertainty this creates is compounded by a further problem: the Registry’s actual examination practice for sound marks is inconsistently lenient. A review of Registry records reveals that a large majority of sound mark applications filed based on proposed use sail through to acceptance without any objection at all, while use-based applications face greater scrutiny. This leniency is not reassuring, as registrations obtained may be legally vulnerable to third-party cancellation actions on grounds of non-distinctiveness or functionality concerns as explained above. The real risk for short digital sounds is therefore not merely that registration is difficult to obtain, but that the absence of consistent examination standards means any registration secured may rest on uncertain legal ground.

Suggestions

In the interim, applicants seeking to register non-melodic or electronically textured sounds could submit a spectrogram or sonogram alongside any musical notation to provide a more precise visual representation of the sound. In the longer term, an amendment to Rule 26(5), or a revision to the Manual of Trade Marks Practice and Procedure expressly permitting spectrograms or high-fidelity audio files as standalone graphical representations for non-melodic sounds, following the EU’s post-2005 practice, could be made without amending the Parent Act. Publication of examination guidelines by the Trade Marks Registry specifying what evidentiary standard, including duration and consistency of use, survey evidence, and market share, can help establish acquired distinctiveness for short digital sounds.

Conclusion

India’s sound mark framework provides certainty for conventional jingles and melodic brand signatures that map naturally onto musical notation and can be supported by robust evidence of acquired distinctiveness. However, for the short, often non-melodic, digitally generated sounds that constitute the sonic identity of India’s fast-growing streaming and digital payments sectors, it is more complicated. The framework does not categorically prevent registration, and the Registry’s lenient examination practice means that registration may be obtainable, but what is obtained may not be legally secure. Issues of graphical representation, distinctiveness, functionality bar, and lack of guidelines together create unpredictability. Registry practice appears inconsistent, so the criticism here is about uncertainty rather than formal invalidity. Amendments to the existing law and clear guidelines from the Trade Marks Registry would greatly help future applicants seeking to register short sonic identities as sound marks in India.