What's in a name? Cognizant India becomes Innovate amid trademark dispute

On April 19, the Bombay High had restrained Cognizant from using its new trademark logo in India.

Present and past employees of Nasdaq-listed Cognizant were perplexed when their social media profiles and work experience suddenly showed Innovate in the logo unit.

Messaging groups were abuzz in the last couple of days with questions like. "What is Innovate?", "Have you heard of this company?" and "How did Cognizant become Innovate and when did I work there?"

It appears that US-headquartered Cognizant, which has a majority of its employees in India has quietly changed its logo on various platforms to Innovate, weeks after a Bombay High Court order restrained it from using its previous logo.

In April, the High Court restrained Cognizant from using the logo after a Bengaluru-based company, Atyati Technologies, filed a complaint accusing Cognizant of using an identical trademark logo.

The Teaneck-based company has changed its symbol on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter).

A screengrab of Cognizant's LinkedIn page

When asked whether the company has changed the logo because of the recent court order, Cognizant told Moneycontrol, “We do not comment on sub-judice matters. Cognizant respects third-party intellectual properties, while remaining committed to protecting its own business interest and IPs.”

A Cognizant spokesperson further said, “We are temporarily using ‘innovate’ as a header on our social media channels to commemorate the one-year anniversary of our Bluebolt innovation initiative, celebrating the central role innovation plays in Cognizant's culture and our commitment to developing 200,000 ideas by the end of 2024.”

The spokesperson further said, "We launched the campaign on World Innovation Day and expect it to run through May."

Cognizant introduced Bluebolt, a grassroots innovation programme, for its global associates to devise and submit ideas with the goal of advancing clients' success. Cognizant has received over 130,000 ideas in a year, and more than 23,000 ideas have been implemented so far, the company said in a release on April 25.

On April 19, the Bombay High had restrained Cognizant from using its new trademark logo in India. Atyati Technologies alleged that Cognizant provides nearly identical services, including IT infrastructure, software development for banking and financial services, and consulting services, under a logo resembling its own.

Atyati Technologies claimed that its orange-coloured hexagonal honeycomb logo was being used by Cognizant. It argued that any confusion with the US-based company’s logo could damage its business interests and reputation.

“It is also curious to note that there is no reason or justification whatsoever in the Defendants’ (Cognizant’s) said response as to how or in what manner did the Defendants came to adopt the mark/logo which is almost identical/deceptively similar to the Plaintiff’s ATYATI Registered Marks and the ATYATI Device Mark,” the court said in the restraining order.

Cognizant has over 500,000 former employees and over 200,000 employees currently, a majority of whom are based in India.

Also read: Cognizant Q1 revenue falls over 1% due to weak discretionary spending