INTRODUCTION
Trademark law has historically been rooted in the logic of trade occurring through physical goods, tangible packaging, brick-and-mortar shops, and geographically located services. Yet contemporary markets increasingly assign value to non-physical assets: downloadable skins, virtual sneakers, branded digital handbags, tokenized collectibles, metaverse concerts, avatar accessories, and persistent immersive storefronts. Global trademark offices and courts have already been forced to confront the legal consequences of this shift. WIPO has noted that businesses contemplating branded virtual goods and services in metaverse environments must think afresh about registration strategy, specification drafting, and enforcement, because brands are now monetized in digital environments as products in themselves rather than merely as advertisements for physical goods.
The Indian legal question is especially important because the Indian metaverse economy is still emergent, yet Indian trademark doctrine is already technologically exposed. Indian courts have dealt with domain name conflicts, keyword advertising, online marketplaces, metadata-based confusion, and cross-border online jurisdiction. They have therefore built a body of principles that, while not metaverse-specific, is highly relevant to immersive digital commerce. The core issue is no longer whether trademark law can apply online; that proposition is already settled. The more difficult issue is how far existing doctrine can travel when the online environment evolves from websites and search engines to persistent virtual worlds in which consumers buy, wear, display, and trade branded virtual objects.
This paper proceeds from four propositions. First, the metaverse does not negate the applicability of trademark law; it intensifies the need for it. Secondly, Indian law can doctrinally accommodate virtual goods and services because the Trade Marks Act, 1999 is framed around the protection of marks in relation to “goods” and “services,” concepts capable of digital extension. Thirdly, the key practical difficulties arise not from the absence of all legal tools, but from uncertainty regarding classification, proof of use, territorial jurisdiction, and intermediary responsibility. Finally, India should resist both extremes: neither treating the metaverse as a wholly lawless frontier nor assuming that ordinary internet-era doctrine can be transplanted without refinement.
The inquiry is doctrinal in method. It reads the Trade Marks Act, 1999, the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 alongside comparative administrative materials from WIPO, EUIPO, and the USPTO, and places them against Indian case law on online trademark disputes. The objective is not to suggest that Indian law already contains a finished metaverse code, but to show that existing principles can be organised into a workable framework for virtual commerce.
THE METAVERSE, VIRTUAL GOODS, AND THE TRADEMARK PROBLEM
The term “metaverse” remains conceptually unstable, but for legal purposes it refers to persistent virtual environments in which users, through avatars or digital interfaces, interact with each other, access branded spaces, consume entertainment, acquire digital objects, and sometimes exchange assets across linked technological systems.1 Its legal significance lies not in rhetoric but in commerce. When a user purchases a downloadable virtual handbag for an avatar, attends a branded virtual event, or enters a virtual retail outlet bearing a famous mark, the law confronts signs functioning in the same marketplace roles traditionally occupied by physical trademarks.
Virtual goods create a distinctive trademark problem because they are neither mere advertisements nor fully analogous to conventional physical goods. They are intangible products with exchange value and consumer-facing identity. WIPO’s classification discussions and metaverse guidance make clear that virtual goods are increasingly treated as digital content requiring precise identification, rather than as free-floating references to the physical goods they imitate.2 EUIPO has taken the position that the term “virtual goods” is too vague on its own and that applicants must specify the content to which the virtual goods relate, such as downloadable virtual clothing, footwear, or artwork.3 The USPTO has similarly emphasized that applications should identify the specific virtual goods or metaverse-related services claimed, rather than relying on open-ended technological labels.4
The trademark problem emerges in at least four recurring forms. First, a third party may use a well-known real-world mark on a virtual good, such as a digital shoe or bag, without authorization. Secondly, a metaverse platform or seller may operate virtual storefronts, events, or advertising channels that suggest affiliation with a brand. Thirdly, a brand owner may wish to extend protection from physical goods to virtual analogues, raising classification and use questions. Fourthly, disputes may arise where a sign is deployed in tokenized or blockchain-linked environments, including NFTs, even though the NFT itself is only a digital certificate and not the digital good it references.5
Traditional trademark law protects source identification, consumer trust, goodwill, and fair competition. Those concerns do not disappear when trade shifts into immersive environments. They become more acute. In a metaverse setting, the consumer encounters the mark not as a static label but as part of an interactive commercial experience. A branded virtual object may therefore perform the same market function as a physical product: it communicates prestige, signals affiliation, and attracts consumers precisely because the sign attached to it carries recognisable goodwill.
The metaverse also reopens the relation between a mark and the product category for which it is registered. A mark registered for clothing in Class 25 does not automatically cover downloadable virtual clothing now understood as Class 9 matter under international classification practice.6 This gap is not merely bureaucratic. It determines the scope of filing strategy, the ease of enforcement, and the plausibility of confusion-based claims where consumers increasingly encounter the same brand in both physical and virtual commerce.
III. THE INDIAN STATUTORY FRAMEWORK: CAPACITY AND CONSTRAINT
A. The Trade Marks Act, 1999
The Trade Marks Act, 1999 defines a trademark broadly as a mark capable of graphical representation and capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one person from those of others.7 That definition does not confine protection to tangible goods. Nor does it exclude digital commerce. The statute is designed to protect marks in relation to goods and services, and section 7 recognizes classification of goods and services for the purposes of registration.8 The Act also defines “deceptively similar” marks, prohibits registration of marks that are descriptive or likely to deceive, provides for infringement and passing off, protects well-known marks, and contains advertising-related infringement language expansive enough to matter in virtual environments.9
Nothing in this structure makes digital commerce conceptually alien to Indian trademark law. A downloadable virtual jacket, if marketed under a sign to distinguish origin, is still a commercial product. A virtual concert, avatar-based styling service, or immersive branded retail space is still a service offered under a mark. The real difficulty lies elsewhere: how such goods and services should be specified, what counts as trademark use in immersive environments, how confusion should be assessed where physical and virtual markets overlap, and when a platform’s role becomes too active to be treated as neutral intermediation.
B. Distinctiveness, Deception, and the Registration Gate
Sections 9 and 11 remain foundational in the metaverse context. Section 9 bars marks devoid of distinctive character, marks which designate the kind, quality, or intended purpose of goods or services, and marks of such nature as to deceive the public or cause confusion.10 In metaverse filings, this means that technologically generic designations such as “metastore,” “virtual mall,” or “avatar wear” may confront descriptiveness objections unless stylized or shown to have acquired distinctiveness. At the same time, section 9 can assist in screening deceptive attempts to use virtual specifications to overreach into another’s goodwill.
Section 11, which deals with relative grounds for refusal, becomes important where a prior physical-world brand owner opposes a later application for related virtual goods or services. Although Indian jurisprudence has not yet produced a reported metaverse-specific opposition decision of major authority, the statutory logic strongly supports a cross-market confusion analysis. Where consumers already know a mark in relation to clothing, cosmetics, entertainment, automobiles, or hospitality, a later application for downloadable virtual versions of those offerings may create an association sufficient to trigger section 11, especially for famous or well-known marks.11
C. Infringement, Dilution, and Virtual Commercial Use
Section 29 is the principal infringement provision. It extends beyond counterfeit labels on physical products and captures use of a mark in the course of trade where such use causes confusion, implies association, or, in relation to reputed marks, takes unfair advantage of or is detrimental to distinctive character or reputation.12 Section 29(4), in particular, is relevant where metaverse uses occur in relation to goods or services not identical to those for which the mark is registered, but nevertheless exploit the reputation of a famous mark. A virtual luxury handbag sold under a famous real-world luxury mark may therefore implicate dilution-style concerns even if the defendant argues that it operates in a novel digital market.
Section 29(6) clarifies that a person uses a registered mark if, among other things, the person applies it to goods or their packaging, offers or exposes goods for sale under the mark, stocks them for that purpose, offers or supplies services under the mark, or uses the mark in advertising.13 This language is particularly important for the metaverse. A branded virtual object displayed for purchase in a virtual environment, a metaverse storefront bearing a sign, or an immersive event advertised under a confusingly similar mark can all plausibly fall within the statutory conception of use. Nothing in the text restricts “offering for sale” or “advertising” to physical settings.
Protection for well-known marks becomes especially important in virtual markets. Where a mark has established reputation in India, an unauthorized digital use is unlikely to be viewed as commercially disconnected from the brand’s existing goodwill. Much of the value in metaverse merchandising lies precisely in importing real-world prestige into digital settings. Indian law should therefore treat reputation-based claims in virtual environments as commercially serious rather than technologically peripheral.
D. Passing Off and the Common Law Reserve Power
Even where registration gaps exist, passing off remains available. Passing off is particularly significant because many current virtual commerce disputes arise before brand owners have built complete class coverage for digital goods and services. The classical trinity—goodwill, misrepresentation, and damage—maps easily onto metaverse environments where unauthorized virtual goods signal affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement.14 Indian courts have long treated domain names and online identifiers as capable of supporting passing off claims, which makes it doctrinally unsurprising that virtual storefront identifiers, immersive event branding, or avatar-oriented digital merchandise could attract similar reasoning.15
Passing off is also better suited than a narrow class-to-class comparison when courts confront hybrid physical-digital markets. It permits attention to the defendant’s overall course of conduct and to the broader question whether goodwill has been misappropriated through a misleading aura of affiliation. That flexibility matters where the claimant’s registration portfolio is incomplete but the commercial reality of brand association is obvious.
CLASSIFICATION OF VIRTUAL GOODS AND SERVICES: THE FIRST PRACTICAL CHALLENGE
Perhaps the most immediate difficulty in metaverse trademark protection is classification. India follows a classification framework under section 7 of the Trade Marks Act, and in practice the Registry operates with the Nice Classification architecture.16 Developments in international classification practice now treat downloadable virtual goods as generally falling in Class 9, while retail services featuring virtual goods fall in Class 35 and certain entertainment services in virtual environments fall in Class 41.17
WIPO’s Nice Classification materials and committee documents show that NFTs and the metaverse have already affected the classification system, with entries and guidance added to reflect virtual goods and services.18 WIPO’s public materials note that new entries concerning NFTs and the metaverse came into force with the 2024 version of the twelfth edition of the Nice Classification.19 EUIPO guidance likewise states that virtual goods are proper to Class 9, but the term must be specified, and that retail of virtual goods is classified in Class 35.20 WIPO’s 2025 Class 41 publication also expressly includes “entertainment services provided in virtual environments.”21 The USPTO’s newer-technology guidance similarly instructs applicants to identify the nature of the virtual goods or services with specificity, such as downloadable virtual clothing or online retail store services featuring virtual goods.22
For Indian applicants, the practical implication is straightforward. A proprietor that owns registrations only for physical clothing in Class 25 should not assume that those filings automatically extend to downloadable virtual clothing. The same caution applies to hospitality, entertainment, and retail brands seeking to enter immersive environments. Trademark strategy for virtual trade must be planned and filed consciously; it cannot safely be left to implication.
This classification problem has consequences beyond examination formalities. It affects pleading strategy, opposition practice, and the strength of later infringement claims. A claimant with a narrow portfolio may still invoke passing off or the law relating to reputed marks, but specific filings for virtual goods or services materially strengthen the case by reducing arguments about remoteness and by aligning the register more closely with actual commercial expansion.
A further classification problem concerns whether every NFT-related activity should be treated as a goods claim. International guidance increasingly distinguishes between the NFT as a digital certificate and the underlying digital asset or service to which it relates.23 Indian practice should adopt the same distinction. Otherwise, applicants may draft technologically fashionable but legally indeterminate specifications, making the register less precise and enforcement less coherent.
USE, CONFUSION, AND TRADEMARK INJURY IN IMMERSIVE ENVIRONMENTS
A. Why Metaverse Use Is Trademark Use
A recurring defense in early virtual commerce disputes has been that the challenged sign is merely expressive, referential, or technologically novel rather than trademark use. Indian law should approach this defense with caution. Where a sign appears on virtual goods offered for sale, on immersive storefronts, in sponsored virtual events, or in monetized avatar customization ecosystems, the sign ordinarily functions as a badge of origin or association. Section 29’s language regarding use in the course of trade, offering for sale, and use in advertising is broad enough to capture such acts.24
Foreign metaverse litigation reinforces this point. In Hermès International v. Rothschild, the Southern District of New York refused to immunize the “MetaBirkins” NFTs merely because the product existed in a digital art-inflected ecosystem; the dispute proceeded on orthodox trademark theories, and the case ultimately resulted in a verdict and permanent injunction in favor of Hermès.25 Likewise, the continuing litigation in Nike, Inc. v. StockX LLC demonstrates that courts are willing to treat digital token-linked uses of famous marks as commercially meaningful uses capable of causing trademark harm rather than as categorically non-commercial speech.26
These foreign decisions are not binding in India, but they are persuasive in one crucial respect: they refuse to assume that digital novelty dissolves trademark significance. Indian courts, which have already recognized that websites, domain names, search-result advertising, and online marketplaces can produce actionable trademark consequences, are unlikely to accept a categorical “not use” argument merely because the sale takes place in immersive space.27
B. Likelihood of Confusion in Hybrid Physical-Digital Markets
The standard confusion inquiry must be adapted, not abandoned. Indian courts traditionally assess confusion through overall impression, imperfect recollection, the nature of the marks, the nature of the goods and services, class of purchasers, and surrounding circumstances.28 In metaverse disputes, those factors should include at least five additional considerations.
Indian courts should therefore supplement the orthodox confusion factors with additional considerations suited to immersive markets. They should ask whether consumers are likely to expect the plaintiff to expand into virtual merchandise, whether the defendant’s digital goods reproduce the plaintiff’s brand identity in a recognisable way, whether third parties encountering the item in a shared environment may assume authenticity, and whether the overall setting suggests official collaboration, licensing, or endorsement.
The logic of Indian keyword advertising cases is relevant here. In Google LLC v. DRS Logistics (P) Ltd., the Delhi High Court emphasized that invisible or internal technological use of a mark as a keyword is not per se infringing in every case, particularly where the impugned mark does not visibly appear to consumers; context remains central.29 In Google LLC v. MakeMyTrip (India) (P) Ltd., the Court similarly rejected an overbroad proposition that bidding on trademarks as keywords automatically constitutes infringement, while still recognizing the importance of consumer confusion and the manner in which advertisements are displayed.30 These decisions show that Indian courts are prepared to differentiate between internal technological architecture and consumer-facing source signals.
That distinction is important in metaverse disputes. Not every invisible reference to a brand embedded in code, indexing architecture, asset libraries, or search functionality should trigger infringement liability. But once the sign becomes consumer-facing—appearing on the virtual product, storefront, promotional banner, or event interface—the analysis returns to familiar trademark questions about source, association, confusion, and unfair advantage.
C. The Significance of Reputation and Dilution
For famous marks, the metaverse magnifies dilution concerns. Section 29(4) protects marks with reputation in India where use without due cause takes unfair advantage of or is detrimental to the distinctive character or repute of the registered mark.31 Virtual goods are often valuable precisely because they borrow prestige from real-world luxury, sportswear, automotive, or entertainment brands. Unauthorized virtual replicas or digital twins can therefore impair exclusivity even where the defendant claims to operate in a “different” market.
Metaverse disputes involving famous marks often look less like ordinary counterfeit disputes and more like cases of free-riding on commercial aura. The defendant may not claim to sell the claimant’s physical goods, yet may still exploit the mark’s prestige in a new medium for profit. Indian courts should be prepared to address that form of injury through dilution reasoning and the broader protection accorded to marks with substantial reputation.
TERRITORIALITY, JURISDICTION, AND THE BORDERLESS INTERFACE PROBLEM
Trademark rights remain territorial even when commerce becomes borderless. The metaverse does not abolish this feature of trademark law. Instead, it complicates the forum analysis. Indian courts have already confronted versions of this problem in the context of internet disputes. In Banyan Tree Holding (P) Ltd. v. A. Murali Krishna Reddy, the Delhi High Court held that mere accessibility of a website in a forum is insufficient; there must be purposeful targeting or commercial effect within the forum.32 That principle should continue to govern metaverse disputes. A foreign virtual environment theoretically accessible in India should not, without more, ground Indian jurisdiction. But where the virtual activity is directed at Indian consumers, denominated in Indian currency, accompanied by India-facing advertising, or results in commercial interaction with Indian users, the jurisdictional case becomes significantly stronger.
The Banyan Tree approach can be adapted to immersive trade without difficulty. Courts should examine whether the relevant virtual environment was directed at Indian users, whether Indian consumers could transact within it, whether the platform relied on India-facing marketing or currency options, and whether the plaintiff’s Indian goodwill was deliberately targeted. Such a standard preserves territorial discipline while recognising the realities of cross-border digital trade.
The issue of cross-border relief also becomes acute. In Swami Ramdev v. Facebook, the Delhi High Court accepted the possibility of globally effective relief in relation to online intermediaries, subject to the logic of enforceability and ongoing appellate refinement.33 Although that case arose in a defamation setting, its reasoning is relevant to platform-governed digital spaces where localized blocking may be ineffective because users can re-access infringing content or virtual goods through technical workarounds. In a metaverse trademark case, especially involving counterfeit virtual goods or fraudulent brand impersonation, plaintiffs are likely to seek broad disabling orders extending beyond narrow URL-specific relief.
Indian courts should nonetheless calibrate relief with care. Broad disabling orders may sometimes be necessary where infringement is obvious, commercially exploitative, and easily replicable across linked environments. At the same time, indiscriminate global relief may create avoidable problems of comity and overbreadth. The better course is a context-sensitive model that matches the width of the injunction to the scale, clarity, and technical evasiveness of the wrongdoing.
PLATFORM GOVERNANCE AND INTERMEDIARY LIABILITY
The metaverse is fundamentally platform-mediated. Brand owners rarely confront only a direct infringer; they also confront marketplaces, immersive hosts, avatar-asset exchanges, recommendation systems, token-linked access mechanisms, and interface layers through which consumers discover and purchase virtual goods. For that reason, trademark enforcement in virtual spaces cannot be understood apart from intermediary regulation.
Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 grants intermediaries conditional safe harbor for third-party information, data, or communication links, subject to statutory conditions and due diligence.34 The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 further specify due diligence obligations, notice-based compliance expectations, and the circumstances in which immunity may be jeopardized.35 The metaverse raises the question whether immersive platform operators should be treated as neutral intermediaries, active participants, or something in between.
Indian case law already distinguishes between passive hosting and active commercial participation. In Christian Louboutin SAS v. Nakul Bajaj, the Delhi High Court held that an e-commerce platform that actively participates in promotion, identification, packaging, and assurance practices may not be able to rely on the posture of a mere intermediary.36 The judgment is particularly relevant to metaverse marketplaces because many such platforms do more than passively host user-generated assets. They curate branded collections, recommend digital items, process transactions, control discovery tools, and create architecture that may reinforce consumer assumptions of authenticity.
A platform that merely stores user-generated 3D assets may present a stronger safe-harbour case than one that curates branded collections, verifies sellers in a misleading way, promotes suspect listings, or shares revenue from infringing sales. Christian Louboutin therefore offers a useful doctrinal bridge for metaverse disputes: the more deeply the platform participates in the commercial presentation and monetisation of the disputed sign, the harder it becomes to describe its role as purely passive.
A metaverse-specific complication remains. Immersive platforms often combine hosting, rendering, recommendation, payment infrastructure, and social interaction within a single technical architecture. The simple binary between passive host and active seller may therefore be too blunt. Indian law should move toward a layered model of responsibility: ordinary notice-and-takedown rules for genuinely passive services, enhanced compliance duties for marketplaces, and stricter scrutiny where the platform itself shapes the branded experience or directly profits from the disputed goods.
DOMAIN NAMES, VIRTUAL IDENTIFIERS, AND THE EXPANSION OF PASSING OFF LOGIC
Indian courts have repeatedly recognized that online identifiers can perform trademark functions. Domain names have been treated as business identifiers capable of attracting passing off protection because they signal source and association in digital commerce.37 In People Interactive (India) Pvt. Ltd. v. Vivek Pahwa, the Bombay High Court was willing to protect the commercial significance of the plaintiff’s “shaadi” branding in the domain name context.38 That logic should travel naturally to metaverse identifiers such as branded virtual store names, avatar handles used in trade, persistent virtual venue names, and platform-specific asset namespaces.
This matters because metaverse branding will not always appear on conventional product packaging. The relevant sign may instead appear in a virtual district name, an avatar-facing storefront handle, a persistent event venue, or a discovery interface that channels users toward a branded digital environment. In each of these settings, the legal question should be functional: does the identifier communicate source or affiliation to consumers in the course of trade?
Indian litigants should therefore look beyond counterfeit replicas alone. Some of the most damaging forms of metaverse misconduct may involve imitation brand spaces, parasitic virtual real estate, misleading event environments, or recommendation tools that direct users toward unofficial but seemingly affiliated digital experiences.
COMPARATIVE GUIDANCE AND ITS RELEVANCE TO INDIA
Comparative materials are especially valuable because administrative offices have moved faster than legislatures. WIPO’s metaverse guidance reflects an emerging international consensus that virtual goods and services require careful specification and early filing.39 EUIPO’s guidelines go further by refusing vague claims such as “virtual goods” without a specific indication of content and by classifying retail of virtual goods in Class 35.40 The USPTO’s newer-technology guidance similarly treats virtual goods, NFTs, and metaverse services as matters requiring precise identification rather than casual technological labeling.41
These comparative materials deserve attention for practical as well as theoretical reasons. Indian trademark practice already operates against the background of the Nice Classification, Indian applicants increasingly seek protection across multiple jurisdictions, and foreign administrative guidance offers workable solutions to filing and specification problems that domestic practice has not yet systematically addressed.
Comparative litigation also matters, though with caution. Hermès and Nike show that courts are prepared to treat digital objects and token-linked uses as serious trademark matters, while still wrestling with defenses grounded in expression, technology, or market novelty.42 India should not mechanically import foreign outcomes, but these cases confirm a broader doctrinal intuition: when brands are commercially exploited in virtual worlds, the law need not wait for physical duplication before recognizing injury.
A METAVERSE-SENSITIVE FRAMEWORK FOR INDIA
India should now move from broad analogies to clearer administrative practice. The first step should be a Registry practice note clarifying acceptable specifications for downloadable virtual goods, retail services involving virtual goods, immersive entertainment, and token-linked authentication services. Clearer guidance would reduce inconsistent examination, discourage strategically vague applications, and help applicants align filings with actual modes of digital trade.
A second reform would be a structured notice framework between the Trade Marks Registry and major digital intermediaries. Where a mark has been recognised as well known or a court has recorded a recurring pattern of metaverse-related infringement, platforms should be able to receive standardized notices that assist them in disabling identical or materially similar repeat violations more quickly.
Thirdly, courts should acknowledge that effective metaverse enforcement will often depend on technically informed evidence. Screen recordings, user-flow captures, blockchain transaction logs, platform dashboards, geo-targeting data, and interface-level demonstrations may all become important in proving use, confusion, targeting, or intermediary participation. Future trademark litigation in this space will therefore demand not only doctrinal clarity but evidentiary sophistication.
Finally, Indian scholarship and adjudication should resist portraying every virtual trademark dispute as a problem of pure technological novelty. At bottom, many of these controversies remain disputes about confusion, endorsement, unfair appropriation, and protection of goodwill. The genuine innovation lies in the medium, the architecture of the platform, and the evidentiary form of the harm—not in the disappearance of traditional trademark values.
SPECIFIC PROBLEM AREAS IN METAVERSE TRADEMARK LITIGATION
A. NFTs, Tokenization, and the Authenticity Gap
Although NFTs are frequently discussed together with virtual goods, they are not identical to them. Administrative guidance increasingly treats an NFT as a digital certificate recorded on a blockchain rather than as the underlying item itself.43 This distinction matters because litigants often conflate authentication technology with the product category. A trademark dispute involving an NFT may therefore present different questions depending on whether the defendant is selling (i) a branded digital artwork, (ii) a certificate purporting to authenticate access to a branded experience, or (iii) a token that markets itself by reference to a famous mark without authorization. Indian courts should be careful to identify what exactly is being offered in trade before proceeding to classify or compare goods.
Even so, tokenized environments can generate familiar trademark harms. When an NFT or token-linked digital asset is marketed under a famous mark, consumers may assume that the offering is officially issued, technologically endorsed, or commercially connected to the brand owner. The fact that the product is digital does not eliminate misrepresentation; it merely changes the manner in which the representation is made.
Indian law should therefore avoid treating blockchain-linked products as doctrinally exotic. The proper inquiry remains functional. If the sign is used in a way that conveys source, affiliation, endorsement, or commercial authorization, the ordinary rules of infringement, dilution, and passing off remain available. If the token operates only as a hidden technical certificate with no source-signifying role, the trademark case is correspondingly weaker.
B. Avatar Merchandising and Post-Sale Confusion
Avatar merchandising deserves closer attention in Indian scholarship. Virtual apparel, footwear, jewelry, gestures, and accessories are not only purchased; they are displayed before other users inside shared digital spaces. The avatar thus becomes a visible site of brand communication, and unauthorized digital merchandise can produce the same kind of social signaling and reputational borrowing that physical branded products produce offline.
The resulting injury is not limited to a diverted sale. It may include erosion of exclusivity, reputational harm caused by low-quality replicas, and appropriation of the symbolic value that makes luxury and lifestyle marks commercially powerful. Even where the immediate purchaser understands that the product is unofficial, other users in the virtual environment may read it as authentic or licensed. That possibility makes post-sale confusion especially important in the metaverse context.
C. Virtual Storefronts, Trade Dress, and Environment-Based Misrepresentation
A further problem arises when defendants imitate not only the word mark but the entire commercial atmosphere associated with the claimant. In immersive environments, a defendant may reproduce store layout, colour schemes, signage, ambient design, or the overall look and feel of a branded service space. Such conduct can mislead users even without exact textual duplication, because the association is conveyed through the total environment rather than through a single label.
Indian passing off doctrine is capable of responding to this problem because it has never been confined to literal copying of word marks. Courts have long examined overall get-up and commercial presentation. That reasoning should apply with equal force to simulated luxury boutiques, branded digital venues, and immersive service environments that reproduce the recognisable commercial personality of another trader.
D. Sponsored Search, Discovery Tools, and In-World Advertising
Metaverse platforms will likely rely on search, recommendation, sponsorship, and algorithmic discovery systems no less than conventional e-commerce markets. The jurisprudence on keyword advertising therefore becomes increasingly relevant. Indian courts have already shown that the legality of keyword use depends heavily on how the mark appears to the consumer and whether confusion is actually generated.44 In immersive environments, a similar distinction should hold between back-end search optimization and front-end sponsored placement that prominently presents a rival or counterfeit offering under or alongside the claimant’s brand.
Where a metaverse platform sells priority placement against famous marks and presents results in a manner that implies official connection, the case for actionable trademark use becomes much stronger. By contrast, purely internal indexing or invisible classification systems should not automatically attract liability absent a convincing showing of consumer-facing confusion. Existing keyword jurisprudence thus provides a useful analytical starting point for immersive discovery systems.
REFORM DIRECTIONS FOR INDIA
The Indian position should develop in three related directions. Courts should candidly recognise cross-market brand extension as a normal feature of modern trade; applicants should build registration portfolios that cover both physical and plausible virtual offerings; and the Registry should adopt a commercially realistic but disciplined approach to metaverse-related specifications so that the register reflects actual market practice without collapsing into vagueness.
Remedial practice must also evolve. Static URL-based injunctions are often inadequate in digital environments where assets can be re-uploaded, mirrored, renamed, or shifted across linked spaces with little friction. In appropriate cases, Indian courts should be willing to frame dynamic relief directed not only at specific listings, but also at repeat vendor accounts, technically equivalent reappearances, and other functionally identical manifestations of the infringing sign.
CONCLUSION
The metaverse does not make Indian trademark law redundant. It demonstrates, instead, how central trademarks remain to consumer trust, market signalling, and brand value in new forms of commerce. The Trade Marks Act, 1999 already provides important doctrinal tools—registrability rules, deceptive similarity, infringement, dilution, passing off, well-known mark protection, and advertising-based use—that can be extended to virtual markets with principled interpretation.
What remains unfinished is institutional adaptation. Greater clarity is needed on classification of virtual goods and services, on the assessment of cross-market confusion between physical and digital offerings, on the role of intermediaries in immersive environments, and on the evidentiary practices necessary to prove these disputes effectively. The challenge, in other words, is not the absence of law but the need to apply existing law with greater precision in technologically altered markets.
The soundest Indian approach is therefore neither technological exceptionalism nor complacent reliance on old categories. Virtual goods and services in the metaverse should be treated as genuine sites of trademark use, confusion, dilution, and passing off. The present statute is capable of supporting that conclusion, but meaningful protection will depend on clearer registry guidance, carefully framed pleadings, platform-sensitive enforcement, and adjudication that is alert to how contemporary digital trade actually operates.
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Footnotes
1. World Intell. Prop. Org., The Metaverse, NFTs and IP Rights: To Regulate or Not to Regulate? (2023), https://www.wipo.int/en/web/wipo-magazine/articles/the-metaverse-nfts-and-ip-rights-to-regulate-or-not-to-regulate-42603.
2. Special Union for the International Classification of Goods & Servs. for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (Nice Union), Committee of Experts, Thirty-Third Session 4-5 (May 26, 2023), https://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/classifications/en/clim_ce_33/clim_ce_33_2-main1.pdf.
3. Eur. Union Intell. Prop. Off., Trade Mark Guidelines, 4.4.1 Virtual Goods (2024), https://guidelines.euipo.europa.eu/2214311/2215360/trade-mark-guidelines/4-4-1-virtual-goods.
4. U.S. Patent & Trademark Off., NFTs, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and Virtual Goods 3-4 (2022), https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/TM-Newer-Technologies-handout.pdf.
5. Id.; see also Eur. Union Intell. Prop. Off., Trade Mark Guidelines, 6.25 Downloadable Goods and Virtual Goods (2024), https://guidelines.euipo.europa.eu/2058843/2065747/trade-mark-guidelines/6-25-downloadable-goods-and-virtual-goods.
6. Eur. Union Intell. Prop. Off., Trade Mark Guidelines, 4.4.1 Virtual Goods, supra note 6.
7. Trade Marks Act § 2(1)(zb).
8. Id. § 7.
9. Id. §§ 2(1)(h), 9, 11, 29.
10. Id. § 9.
11. Id. § 11; see also id. § 11(6)-(9).
12. Id. § 29.
13. Id. § 29(6).
14. See Cadila Health Care Ltd. v. Cadila Pharms. Ltd., (2001) 5 SCC 73; Laxmikant V. Patel v. Chetanbhai Shah, (2002) 3 SCC 65.
15. See Satyam Infoway Ltd. v. Sifynet Sols. (P) Ltd., (2004) 6 SCC 145.
16. Trade Marks Act § 7; World Intell. Prop. Org., Nice Classification, https://www.wipo.int/en/web/classification-nice.
17. World Intell. Prop. Org., Class 9, https://www.wipo.int/classifications/nice/nclpub/en/fr/?class_number=9&explanatory_=; World Intell. Prop. Org., Class 35, https://nclpub.wipo.int/enfr/?basic_numbers=show&class_number=35; World Intell. Prop. Org., Class 41, https://nclpub.wipo.int/enfr/pdf-download.pdf?classNumber=41&dateInForce=20250101&lang=en&tab=&viewMode=flat.
18. Special Union for the International Classification of Goods & Servs., supra note 5.
19. World Intell. Prop. Org., Metaverse – AI Inventions 9 (2023), https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo-pub-rn2023-31-en-metaverse.pdf.
20. Eur. Union Intell. Prop. Off., Trade Mark Guidelines, 6.25 Downloadable Goods and Virtual Goods, supra note 8; Eur. Union Intell. Prop. Off., Trade Mark Guidelines, 6.60 Retail and Wholesale Services (2024), https://guidelines.euipo.europa.eu/2214311/2065390/trade-mark-guidelines/6-60-retail-and-wholesale-services.
21. World Intell. Prop. Org., Class 41, supra note 20.
22. U.S. Patent & Trademark Off., NFTs, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and Virtual Goods, supra note 7, at 3-5.
23. Id.; Eur. Union Intell. Prop. Off., Trade Mark Guidelines, 6.25 Downloadable Goods and Virtual Goods, supra note 8.
24. Trade Marks Act § 29(6), (8).
25. Hermès Int’l v. Rothschild, No. 22 Civ. 384 (JSR), 2023 WL 1458126 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 2, 2023); Hermès Int’l v. Rothschild, No. 22 Civ. 384 (JSR), slip op. (S.D.N.Y. June 23, 2023), https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1%3A2022cv00384/573363/191/.
26. Nike, Inc. v. StockX LLC, No. 1:22-cv-00983 (VEC), slip op. (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 25, 2025), https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1%3A2022cv00983/574411/338/.
27. See Satyam Infoway Ltd., (2004) 6 SCC 145; Christian Louboutin SAS, 2018 SCC OnLine Del 12915.
28. See Cadila Health Care Ltd., (2001) 5 SCC 73; Parle Prods. (P) Ltd. v. J.P. & Co., (1972) 1 SCC 618.
29. Google LLC v. DRS Logistics (P) Ltd., 2023 SCC OnLine Del 4809.
30. Google LLC v. MakeMyTrip (India) (P) Ltd., 2023 SCC OnLine Del 7965.
31. Trade Marks Act § 29(4).
32. Banyan Tree Holding (P) Ltd. v. A. Murali Krishna Reddy, 2009 SCC OnLine Del 3780.
33. Swami Ramdev v. Facebook, Inc., 2019 SCC OnLine Del 10701; World Intell. Prop. Org., WIPO Lex Judgments, Swami Ramdev and Anor v Facebook, Inc and Ors, CS (OS) 27/2019 (2019), https://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/judgments/details/1554.
34. Information Technology Act, No. 21 of 2000, § 79, India Code, https://www.indiacode.nic.in/view-casepdf?id=AC_CEN_45_76_00001_200021_1517807324077&type=act.
35. Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, rr. 3-7, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, https://www.meity.gov.in/static/uploads/2024/02/Information-Technology-Intermediary-Guidelines-and-Digital-Media-Ethics-Code-Rules-2021-updated-06.04.2023-.pdf.
36. Christian Louboutin SAS v. Nakul Bajaj, 2018 SCC OnLine Del 12915.
37. Satyam Infoway Ltd. v. Sifynet Sols. (P) Ltd., (2004) 6 SCC 145.
38. People Interactive (India) Pvt. Ltd. v. Vivek Pahwa, 2016 SCC OnLine Bom 7351.
39. World Intell. Prop. Org., Trademarks in the Metaverse, supra note 1.
40. Eur. Union Intell. Prop. Off., Trade Mark Guidelines, 4.4.1 Virtual Goods, supra note 6.
41. U.S. Patent & Trademark Off., NFTs, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and Virtual Goods, supra note 7.
42. Hermès Int’l v. Rothschild, 2023 WL 1458126; Nike, Inc. v. StockX LLC, No. 1:22-cv-00983 (VEC), slip op. (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 25, 2025).
43. U.S. Patent & Trademark Off., NFTs, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and Virtual Goods, supra note 7, at 5; Eur. Union Intell. Prop. Off., Trade Mark Guidelines, 6.25 Downloadable Goods and Virtual Goods, supra note 8.
44. Google LLC v. DRS Logistics (P) Ltd., 2023 SCC OnLine Del 4809; Google LLC v. MakeMyTrip (India) (P) Ltd., 2023 SCC OnLine Del 7965.