Sound Board

Our thoughts and views on the practice of Intellectual Property in India and around the world.

The Intellectual Property Appellate Board recently held hearings for trademark matters in July 2019. The cause list was sent on a rather short notice, and came as a surprise to many advocates since the IPAB currently doesn’t have a technical member for trademarks, and therefore should not be hearing trademark matters under the law. We’ll be taking a look at this in closer detail in this post.

The Indian Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade issued a public notice on June 24, 2019, along with a draft guideline for comments from stakeholders (within 30 days) on the peppy tagline “Invaluable Treasure of Incredible India” and a common tri-color logo for GI certified products.

In a recent judgement, the Delhi High Court set a precedent by issuing India’s first-ever ‘dynamic injunction’ against websites who were deemed to be infringing upon the rights of copyright holders.

With the advancement of technology and the expansion of the grey-market, brands worldwide are currently facing a large-scale import and export of infringing/false & counterfeit goods. Accordingly, to stop the illegal import/export of the counterfeit goods and products into the Indian market, the government has taken strict steps and bought in new amendments in getting the IP registered with the Customs Authority.

Privacy (and particularly data privacy) has become a major talking point over the last few years. With the exponential growth in digitization of services and expanded surveillance capabilities (both government and the private sector), more and more citizens around the world have pushed for governments to legislate strong privacy controls.

The name Adidas is not new, and neither are its products. But in a major twist and what appears to be a blow, the European Court has ruled that the “three stripes” brand/trademark of Adidas was not distinctive enough.

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is one of the most significant pieces of legislation in any sector that has been enacted in recent years. Since its enforcement in May 2018, the GDPR has already seen a critical transformation in the way that various organizations store, handle, and process user data. We’ve provided an overview of the GDPR and some of its key features in an earlier post, which can be seen here. In this post, we’ll be examining some of the key…

There has been a lot of discussion about privacy (particularly online privacy)  over the last couple of years, most of which has coincided with the rise of social media, improved surveillance and monitoring techniques, and the use of user data as a commodity. Several industries have risen solely on the back of harvesting, selling, and trading user data in recent years. Advertisers now use user profiles compiled from aggregating search history, browsing habits, and media consumption to deliver…

Visual recording means “means the recording in any medium, by any method including the storing of it by any electronic means, of moving images or of the representations thereof, from which they can be perceived, reproduced or communicated by any method as defined under section 2(xxa) of the Act.

In a case of fraud, the High Court of Delhi has recently cracked down on unidentified persons who solicited money deposits in the garb of job interviews for a position in Colgate Palmolive Company. In two orders dated 12 April and 15 May, 2019, the High Court of Delhi has ordered an ex parte ad interim injunction against unnamed defendants, after Colgate Palmolive filed a suit.