When Nagasamy Naidu set up the Anandha Vilas Biriyani Hotel in 1957, he wouldn't have known then that his headgear will one day become more famous than the name he chose for his restaurant and be the subject of litigation.
As a follower of Tamil poet and freedom fighter Subramanya Bharathi , Naidu used to wear a 'thalappakatti' (Tamil for turban).
This led his customers in TN's Dindigul—where Anandha Vilas is located—to refer to his biriyani place as Thalappakatti's hotel (the hotel of the one who wears a turban ). The name stuck and became so popular that after his death in 1978, the restaurant was renamed Thalappakatti Anandha Vilas Biriyani Hotel.
Things were fine until 2006, when a new chain of biriyani restaurants called Chennai Rawther Thalappakattu Biryani and Fast Food was launched. Thalappakatti Anandha Vilas soon filed a suit in the Madras High Court against the use of "Thalappakattu" —also meaning turban—in the name. A single judge passed an interim order restraining the Chennai Rawther chain from using "thalappakattu ," but after an appeal a division bench said the chain could use the name as an interim arrangement till the final verdict. But in 2010, the Trademark Registry gave the trademark of "thalappakatti" to Thalappakatti Anandha Vilas, while simultaneously rejecting an application by Chennai Rawther to register "thalappakattu" .