ASPIRATIONAL MARKETS, INADEQUATE LAWS: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CHALLENGES FACING LUXURY FASHION BRANDS IN INDIA’S TIER 2 CITIES

ABSTRACT

The luxury fashion market in India is burgeoning at an exponential rate even outside the metropolitan cities. There are many luxury fashion brands that have managed to enter the Tier 2 cities such as Jaipur, Indore, Lucknow, Bhopal, and Surat. In spite of the increasing disposable income of the consumers and their changing tastes, the process of luxury fashion marketing in tier 2 cities has thrown up serious shortcomings regarding protection of intellectual property. The article highlights the legal hurdles involved in protecting the trademarks and trade dresses in Tier 2 cities and attempts at combating counterfeiting. Based on the provisions of the Trademarks Act, 1999 and the Copyright Act, 1957 as well as certain case laws in India, it is evident that though the current legal regime serves reasonably well in metropolitan areas, it needs improvement where tier 2 cities are concerned.

Keywords: Tier 2 cities, Luxury fashion, Trademarks, Trade dress, counterfeiting, Case laws, Legal regime

1. INTRODUCTION

Think about this a consumer in Jaipur walks into a local market and buys a Louis Vuitton wallet. The stitching looks almost perfect to a normal person the pattern seems same, and the price is a fraction of the original. The seller does not fear legal action. There are no IP enforcement officials in the area. The nearest specialised court is hundreds of kilometres away in Delhi. From a legal perspective that wallet is counterfeited and Louis Vuitton has full right to protect its brand.

This example is not hypothetical. It is the everyday reality of luxury brand protection in India’s Tier 2 cities, and it represents one of the most under-explored problems in Indian fashion law today.

India’s luxury fashion market has long been concentrated in metropolitan centres such as Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru (Bangalore). But over the past decade something major has shifted. Growth in per capita income, accessibility of the internet, and the rapid growth of e-commerce have opened luxury markets in cities like Indore, Lucknow, Bhopal, Surat, and Nagpur. They are opening authorised stores, launching online delivery, and targeting Tier 2 consumers through digital marketing and influencer campaigns. The aspirational consumer is no longer only in the big city.

The problem in these Tier-2 cities is that this commercial expansion has not been matched by legal infrastructure. Trademark enforcement, anti-counterfeiting operations, and specialised IP adjudication remain highly concentrated in metropolitan India. Luxury brands operating in Tier 2 markets are legally protected in theory, but those theories do not get practically applied in these cities.

This article asks a direct question: Does the existing Indian intellectual property legal framework provide adequate protection to luxury fashion brands in Tier 2 cities? And if the answer is no! So, what this article argues is what needs to be changed? To put light on this, the article examines India’s trademark and IP statutes, analyses key Indian and international case law, and draws a comparison with the European Union’s enforcement model, and concludes with practical recommendations for reform.

2. BACKGROUND AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Before getting into the legal analysis kindly, understand two things: what the law states on paper, and what Tier 2 cities look like as markets.

In India, the main law governing trademarks is the Trademarks Act, 1999. This Act allows brands to register their names, logos, colours, packaging, and even the shape of their products as trademarks. Once registered no one has the authority to use similar mark in a way that would confuse consumers. The Act also defines a “well-known trademark” a mark so famous that it gets extra protection even against use in completely different industries.

Section 2(1)(zb) of the Trademarks Act, 1999 defines a trademark broadly to include shapes of goods, packaging, and combinations of colours which means things like the iconic Louis Vuitton monogram pattern, the Burberry check, or the Louboutin red sole are all capable of trademark protection under Indian law. Section 29(4) goes further and protects well-known marks even where the infringing use is on completely different goods or services.²

Alongside trademark law, the Copyright Act, 1957 protects original artistic works that includes fabric prints, design elements, and artistic patterns. The Designs Act, 2000 protects the novel visual features of products. Together these three laws create what looks like a strong protective framework for luxury fashion brands in India.

But legal protection on paper is only as good as its enforcement in practice.

This is where Tier 2 cities create a problem.

India’s Tier 2 cities are urban centres with populations typically between 500,000 and 4 million cities like Jaipur, Indore, Bhopal, Lucknow, Surat, Nagpur, Vadodara, and Coimbatore. These cities have seen significant economic growth in the past decade. A growing middle class with increasing disposable income, better access to the internet, and a strong aspirational culture have made them attractive markets for luxury brands. Brands like Louis Vuitton have begun physical and digital expansions into these markets. At the same time, the absence of authorised retail channels, combined with high consumer aspiration and limited price transparency, has made these cities fertile ground for counterfeit luxury goods.

3. LEGAL ANALYSIS

3.1 The Trademark Framework and Why Enforcement Fails in Tier 2 Cities

The Trademarks Act, 1999 gives brand owners a full set of tools to fight infringement.

Section 29 covers all the way a trademark can be infringed such as using a similar mark, causing consumer confusion, diluting the value of a well-known mark. Sections 103 and 104 make trademark counterfeiting a criminal offence, punishable with imprisonment and fines. There are civil remedies too: injunctions to stop the infringement, damages, and orders to seize and destroy counterfeit goods.

So, the tools exist. The problem is access.

In 2021, the Delhi High Court established a dedicated Intellectual Property Division a specialist court that understands trademark and copyright disputes and can deal with them quickly and correctly. This turned out to be a significant development for IP law in India. But this court had jurisdiction in Delhi. A luxury brand or a fashion designer whose trademark is being infringed in Indore or Bhopal cannot simply walk into this court. They must travel and hire lawyers familiar with that court, and deal with the time and cost of litigation in a distant city.

This is something which Gucci or Hermes or any other big luxury house can afford. In case of small luxury goods makers, or even some mid-range fashion houses, the expenses involved in exercising their rights through metropolitan courts in Tier 2 cities are too expensive to be bothered about. The infringer is aware of this. The local tradesmen know very well that a company operating in Tier 2 cities such as Jaipur or Lucknow will not use the metro cities’ court for acting against them. In essence, the reality of exercising trademarks in Tier 2 cities becomes difficult.

Beyond civil courts, criminal enforcement through police raids and seizures is another route available under Sections 103 and 104 of the Trademarks Act, 1999.³

But this too fails in Tier 2 cities, for a simple reason: local police officers are not trained in intellectual property law. They may not understand what constitutes trademark infringement, how to identify a counterfeit luxury good, or what evidence to collect during a raid. Without dedicated IP enforcement cells at the district level cells that do not currently exist in most Tier 2 cities criminal enforcement is inconsistent at best and completely absent at worst.

3.2 Trade Dress and Non-Conventional Trademarks: Strong Rights, Weak Reach

For luxury fashion brands, some of the most valuable trademarks are not names or logos they are visual identities. The Louboutin red sole, The Burberry plaid check, and The Louis Vuitton monogram pattern. These are what lawyers call “non-conventional trademarks” or “trade dress” visual elements that identify a brand so strongly that they function just like a logo.

Indian trademark law recognises these marks, and Indian courts have increasingly been willing to protect them. But the practical value of this protection depends entirely on enforcement and as already discussed, enforcement in Tier 2 cities is severely limited. A luxury brand with a well-known trade dress registration has strong rights. But if those rights cannot be exercised in the markets where infringement is happening, the registration is of limited real-world value.

3.3 Counterfeiting, E-Commerce, and the Digital Dimension

The counterfeiting problem in India’s Tier 2 cities is not just about local markets and physical goods. E-commerce has made it dramatically worse. The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and development) has documented the global scale of the counterfeit goods trade noting that luxury fashion is amongst the most heavily counterfeited product categories worldwide.

⁴In India, platforms like local social media pages, WhatsApp groups, and smaller e-commerce sites have become major channels for selling counterfeit luxury goods to Tier 2 consumers.

The legal framework for online enforcement in India primarily the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 requires platforms to respond to takedown notices when they receive a valid complaint. But this is a reactive system. The brand must find the listing, send a complaint, and then wait for the platform to act. By the time a listing is taken down, the seller has often already moved to a different account or platform. The law does not require platforms to proactively prevent counterfeit listings or monitor for IP violations. This stands in sharp contrast to the European Union’s Digital Services Act which imposes affirmative due diligence obligations on large online platforms.

4. CASE LAW DISCUSSION

4.1 Christian Louboutin SAS v Abubaker & Ors (Delhi High Court, 2018)

One of the most important Indian cases for luxury fashion trademark law is Christian Louboutin SAS v Abubaker and Ors, which is decided by the Delhi High Court in 2018.⁵ The case involved sellers in India who were making and selling footwear with a red-lacquered outsole the same distinctive feature that Christian Louboutin had built its entire brand identity around.

The legal issue was whether a single colour, applied to a specific part of a product, could be protected as a trademark. The court said yes. It found that the Louboutin red sole had become so strongly associated with the brand through years of use, advertising, and public recognition that it had acquired what lawyers call “secondary meaning” people no longer just saw a red sole, they saw a Louboutin shoe. On that basis, the court declared it a well-known trademark in India and granted an injunction against the defendants.

This case matters for our topic for two reasons. First, it shows that Indian law can protect sophisticated luxury brand identities, including non-conventional elements like colour. Second, and critically, the relief was obtained through the Delhi High Court. The defendants were in India, but the legal battle was fought in Delhi. This illustrates precisely the metropolitan concentration of effective IP enforcement that this article is concerned with. Had the same infringement occurred on a larger scale in Jaipur or Indore, obtaining equivalent relief would have been far more difficult, slower, and more expensive.

4.2 Louboutin v Van Haren Schoenen (Court of Justice of the EU, 2018)

Looking internationally, the same brand Christian Louboutin fought a parallel battle in Europe. In Louboutin v Van Haren Schoenen, the Court of Justice of the European Union was asked whether the Louboutin red sole trademark was valid under EU law or whether it fell within a legal exclusion that prevents shapes from being registered as trademarks.⁶

The CJEU ruled that the red sole is not a shape trademark it is a colour trademark applied to a specific part of a product, and that is something different. The exclusion for shape marks did not apply, and the trademark was confirmed as valid across the European Union.

What is instructive for this article is not just the legal outcome, but the broader enforcement context in the EU. Under the EU’s Enforcement Directive – Directive 2004/48/EC says every member state must provide effective, proportionate, and dissuasive enforcement mechanisms for intellectual property rights. This applies equally in Paris and in a small commercial centre in eastern Poland. The law requires geographic equity in enforcement. There is no equivalent obligation in India. The result is that a luxury brand’s rights are theoretically identical across the country, but far stronger in metropolitan areas than in Tier 2 cities.

4.3 Crocs Inc v Bata India & Ors (Delhi High Court, 2019)

A third case that is directly relevant is Crocs Inc v Bata India and Ors, decided by the Delhi High Court in 2019.⁷ This case examined whether a fashion brand could use trademark law to protect a distinctive product design, even after the design registration under the Designs Act, 2000 had expired.

The court held that yes, if a product design has acquired a secondary meaning if consumers recognise it as a brand identifier it can continue to receive trademark protection even after design registration lapses. This is important because it shows how luxury brands can layer their legal protections, using trademark law as a backstop when other forms of IP protection run out.

But again, the lesson from this case in the context of Tier 2 cities is sobering. Crocs were able to obtain this relief because it had the resources to litigate in the Delhi High Court. A smaller brand, or a brand trying to enforce identical rights in a Tier 2 city, would face an entirely different practical reality.

5. CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

Looking at the law as it stands, three serious problems emerge problems that the current framework does not address.

The first and most fundamental problem is that IP enforcement in India is geographically unequal. The law says that trademark infringement is illegal everywhere in India. But the practical ability to enforce that law depends entirely on where the infringement is happening. A luxury brand infringed in Delhi can obtain swift relief from a specialised IP court with experienced judges. The same brand infringed in Indore must approach a general civil court, potentially without any judges who have dealt with a trademark case involving a luxury fashion good before. The same law, dramatically different outcomes. This is not a minor inconvenience it is a structural failure of the legal system to deliver on its own stated objectives.

The second problem is the digital enforcement gap. E-commerce has given luxury brands access to Tier 2 consumers, but it has given counterfeiters the same access. The IT Rules, 2021 create a system where platforms only act when they receive a complaint. This means that for every counterfeit listing that gets taken down, the same seller can create a new account and be back online within hours. The law asks brands to play whack-a-mole with counterfeiters, and it is a game that no brand not even Louis Vuitton can win at scale. India needs a legal framework that requires large platforms to proactively invest in counterfeit detection, similar to what the EU has done with its Digital Services Act.

The third problem is that smaller brands are left far more vulnerable than large luxury houses. When we talk about luxury brand protection, we tend to think about global giants. But India has a growing number of homegrown luxury and premium fashion labels designers and brands building real, distinctive identities. These brands have the same legal rights as Louis Vuitton. But they do not have Louis Vuitton’s legal team, its enforcement budget, or its ability to absorb the cost of litigation in a distant city. The current system favours those who can afford to use it. That is not a fair or effective legal framework.

Comparatively, the EU model shows what is possible. The Enforcement Directive mandates that member states create effective enforcement mechanisms that are accessible regardless of geography. India could adopt a similar approach establishing district-level IP enforcement cells in major Tier 2 cities, training local police in trademark and counterfeiting law, and creating fast-track mechanisms for IP disputes in smaller jurisdictions. These are not radical reforms. They are straightforward institutional changes that would make existing legal protections real rather than theoretical.

6. CONCLUSION

India’s Tier 2 cities are no longer on the edge of the luxury fashion market. They are becoming the frontier of it. As brands expand beyond Mumbai and Delhi, and as Tier 2 consumers increasingly aspire to and purchase luxury goods whether genuine or counterfeit the law must expand with them.

The intellectual property framework under the Trademarks Act, 1999, the Copyright Act, 1957, and the Designs Act, 2000 is theoretically strong. Indian courts, as the Louboutin, Crocs, and Louis Vuitton cases show, are capabilities of delivering landmark decisions that protect luxury brand identity. But these decisions are delivered by metropolitan courts, accessed by brands with metropolitan resources. Most of the infringement happening in Tier 2 cities goes completely unaddressed.

What India needs is not new laws. It needs the existing laws to work everywhere. That means district-level IP enforcement cells, trained police, and customs officials, accessible fast-track courts for IP disputes, and a digital enforcement regime that puts real obligations on platforms. The aspiration for luxury that is visible in India’s Tier 2 cities deserves to be matched by an equally ambitious legal response. Until that happens, the law will continue to protect those who least need protection and fail those who need it most.

REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

Table of Cases

Christian Louboutin SAS v Abubaker and Ors CS(COMM) 714/2016 (Delhi High Court, 2018)

Crocs Inc v Bata India and Ors (Delhi High Court, 2019)

Louboutin v Van Haren Schoenen C-163/16 (Court of Justice of the European Union, 2018)

Louis Vuitton Malletier v Atul Sehgal and Ors (Delhi High Court)

Table of Legislation

Copyright Act 1957 (India)

Designs Act 2000 (India)

Information Technology Act 2000 (India)

Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 (India)

Trademarks Act 1999 (India)

Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Marrakesh, 15 April 1994)

Directive 2004/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights [2004] OJ L 157/45

Digital Services Act (Regulation EU 2022/2065)

Books

Cornish William, Intellectual Property: Patents, Copyright, Trademarks and Allied Rights ( 9^th edition , Sweet and Maxwell 2019)

Scafidi Susan, Who Owns Culture? Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law (Rutgers University Press 2005)

Journal Articles

Scafidi Susan, ‘Intellectual Property and Fashion Design’ (2006) 1(1) Intellectual Property Law Review 115

Dogan Stacey and Lemley Mark, ‘The Merchandising Right: Fragile Theory or Fait Accompli?’ (2004) 54 Emory Law Journal 461

Online Sources and Reports

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Trade in Counterfeit and Pirated Goods: Mapping the Economic Impact (OECD, 2016) <https://www.oecd.org/trade/topics/illicit-trade> accessed 5 June 2026

World Intellectual Property Organization, Understanding Trademarks (WIPO, 2024) <https://www.wipo.int/trademarks/en> accessed 5 June 2026

IP India, List of Well-Known Trademarks (IP India, 2024) <https://www.ipindia.gov.in> accessed 5 June 2026

Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, National IPR Policy 2016 (DPIIT, 2016) <https://dpiit.gov.in> accessed 5 June 2026

European Union Intellectual Property Office, Guidelines for Examination of EU Trademarks (EUIPO, 2024) <https://euipo.europa.eu> accessed 5 June 2026

FOOTNOTE(S):

¹ Trademarks Act 1999 (India), s 2(zb).

² Trademarks Act 1999 (India), s 29(4).

³ Trademarks Act 1999 (India), ss 103 and 104.

⁴ Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Trade in Counterfeit and Pirated Goods: Mapping the Economic Impact (OECD, 2016) <https://www.oecd.org/trade/topics/illicit-trade> accessed 5 June 2026.

⁵ Christian Louboutin SAS v Abubaker and Ors CS(COMM) 714/2016 (Delhi High Court, 2018).

⁶ Louboutin v Van Haren Schoenen C-163/16 (Court of Justice of the European Union, 2018).

⁷ Crocs Inc v Bata India and Ors (Delhi High Court, 2019).