Protecting Experiences – New Frontiers Of Edible Luxury!

Edible luxury is an immersive, curated, and high-end dining experience. From biological necessity to cerebral fantasy, the food industry has evolved from being nourishment-centric to embracing the concept of luxury on a plate. As of today, food is no longer a matter restricted to taste but has expanded its scope to storytelling experiences, ambiance, and identity. The industry has, through its way of immersion, aimed at elevating dining experience to an art form that demands protection. Whether it's dining inside a tribal cave kitchen or enjoying a 3D animated story on a dinner plate, edible luxury is redefining how value is perceived in food.

The experience extends far beyond expensive ingredients; it is sensorial storytelling through food. Take, for example, Tipai, an Indian restaurant located in the tribal interiors of the State of Maharashtra - guests cook with chefs using native pit-fire techniques in a cave-like setting with earthen pots, tribal music and rustic seating that evoke authenticity and nostalgia. Ultraviolet in Shanghai takes immersion further, pairing each course with calibrated projections, sound, scent and lighting for just ten diners a night, dissolving the boundaries between food, theatre and technology.

These meticulously crafted experiences are the culmination of years of creative efforts and diligent designs - protecting them is crucial not just to reward innovation but also to prevent dilution. This involves navigating the nuanced legal domains of intellectual property protection, such as non-traditional trade marks, trade dress, and trade secrets.

Non-traditional Trade Marks: Protecting the Intangible Elements of a Brand

Modern branding no longer stops at names or logos; it can extend to colours, sounds, shapes, textures, motions, scents and even gestures that signal source. For decades, brands such as McDonald's - with its "I'm lovin' it" tune or even the distinctive contour of the Coca-Cola bottle illustrated how sound and shape can function as trademarks. Colours, such as Cadbury's familiar purple, can also serve as brand identifiers and be trademarked.

In India, any trademark, must satisfy the twin conditions of distinctiveness and graphical representation. Typically, the burden to establish distinctiveness in the case of non-conventional marks is higher and often met through evidence of distinctiveness acquired through use. That said, non-traditional mark jurisprudence in India is robust and it expanded further on November 21, 2025, with the Trade Marks Registry accepting the country's first-ever olfactory trademark: a rose-like fragrance embedded in tyres by Sumitomo Rubber Industries.

What this signals is a broadening of what 'source indicator' can mean in trademark law. For experiential restaurants, features like signature plating, themed interiors, synchronized service, lighting and sound arrangements - or even signature scents or sensory rituals - may now qualify for protection.

Trade Dress Protection

Trade dress refers to the overall visual identity or 'look and feel' of a product or service, encompassing the composite impression created through design, décor, presentation and thematic elements. In the food and hospitality industry, where experiential dining increasingly shapes consumer expectations, trade dress has become especially significant. Interior layouts, lighting schemes, plating styles and thematic consistency - when applied repeatedly and distinctively - can operate as indicators of origin rather than mere aesthetic choices. As restaurants compete through curated, immersive environments, the legal recognition of trade dress underscores its role in protecting experiential branding.

Yet asserting trade dress rights in culinary experiences remains challenging. Courts enforce the functionality doctrine rigorously: features that are essential to a service's utility or culturally generic cannot be protected. A tribal-themed restaurant using clay pots or mud walls, for instance, must show that its specific arrangement is uniquely associated with its brand, rather than a natural extension of tradition. Distinctiveness presents a second hurdle. For trade dress to acquire registrable or enforceable strength, the public must come to identify the overall environment with a single commercial source - a level of recognition that newer or locally rooted brands may struggle to establish without sustained visibility.

This makes documentation and consistent brand expression critical. Restaurants seeking protection must maintain records such as design plans, high-quality photographs, media features, customer reviews and evidence of uninterrupted use. Thoughtful branding, including social-media presence, influencer engagement and press coverage, can help solidify the association between a restaurant's sensory environment and its identity.

Le Petit Chef offers a compelling illustration. This augmented-reality dining experience uses 3D projection mapping to animate a miniature chef who chops, sprints and flambés across the plate in synchrony with each course. Crucially, the experience is standardized across global locations: the same narrative sequence, projection design, music cues and coordinated service are reproduced to create a uniform sensory impression. This consistency strengthens the argument that the overall environment - not just the animation - functions as protectable trade dress or a non-traditional mark. If another restaurant were to replicate the same projected storyline or sensory choreography without authorization, it could not only infringe copyright over the animation but also risk creating consumer confusion, thereby diluting the distinctiveness of Le Petit Chef's carefully constructed experiential identity.

Dilution, Genericism and the Fragile Nature of Experience

A central vulnerability for trade dress and other non-traditional trademarks is the risk of dilution. As experiential dining concepts spread, features once considered distinctive - tribal décor, projection-mapped dining, signature plating or thematic interiors - can quickly become commonplace. When an aesthetic element becomes ubiquitous, it loses its capacity to identify a single commercial source, weakening both its distinctiveness and its enforceability. To maintain protection, brand owners must monitor imitation, assert their rights promptly and continually refine their experiential identity to stay ahead of genericism.

Indian courts have begun recognising the value of such experiential markers. In ITC v. Central Park Estates (2022), the Delhi High Court held that 'BUKHARA' qualified as a well-known trademark and protected not only the name but the distinctive elements that defined the restaurant's identity. ITC had established Bukhara in the 1970s, cultivating a unique décor, wooden menus and a characteristic staff uniform. When the defendants opened 'Balkh Bukhara' and adopted similar menu design, uniforms and cutlery, the Court injuncted them, acknowledging that these elements collectively formed part of Bukhara's protectable trade dress.

Likewise, in Merwans Confectioners Pvt Ltd v. Sugar Street (2019), the Bombay High Court restrained a former franchisee from mimicking the distinctive brown tiles, layout and décor used across Merwans' 24 outlets. The Court recognised that even the arrangement and interior appearance of a bakery, when consistently applied across franchise locations, could amount to protectable trade dress, and that copying such elements after the expiry of a franchise arrangement constituted infringement.

These cases demonstrate that Indian courts are increasingly willing to extend trademark protection to the experiential environment surrounding food and hospitality brands. For innovators like Le Petit Chef or Ultraviolet, whose carefully choreographed sensory settings form the core of their identity, a close imitation by competitors risks not just confusion but an erosion of the distinctiveness that makes such experiences valuable.

Looking Ahead: Intellectual Property Literacy in Edible Luxury

As dining, performance and storytelling continue to converge, the culinary world stands at the threshold of an intellectual property transformation. Innovation on the plate must now be matched by innovation in legal strategy. IP literacy should become integral to culinary training and business planning, helping chefs, restaurateurs and food entrepreneurs recognise that the sensory and atmospheric elements of their brand are not just aesthetic choices but valuable economic assets. Trade dress, sound marks and multisensory cues are no longer peripheral; they form the vocabulary through which experiential dining communicates identity and meaning.

Building this future requires embedding IP audits into expansion plans, cultivating robust trademark portfolios, and leveraging international frameworks such as the Madrid Protocol to secure protection across markets. Yet the deeper shift is cultural: recognising that the emotional, narrative and ambient dimensions of eating deserve the same legal stewardship traditionally reserved for names, logos or recipes. As the law evolves to embrace these intangible facets of brand narrative, it will fall to the industry not only to assert existing rights but to imagine new forms of protection. The future of food luxury lies not simply in preserving what is distinct today, but in defining what experiential value ought to endure tomorrow.

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