Sound Board

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

The efficiency of the Indian judiciary has been the subject of many a discussion at both professional and personal gatherings that I’ve attended. The media has covered the overwhelming case backlog and seemingly infinite expanse of time that it would take to clear them. Most often the general public believes that taking something to Court, would end up in a judgement approximately two decades later, orders that rarely benefit either side, a staid interpretation of the law and that the only…

There’s no dearth for mobile applications on smartphones. There’s an app for everything today and you’ll definitely find one to meet your requirements. We’re spoilt for choices and that’s exactly the concern of every mobile application developer. They need to make sure that they stand out and create an app that is better than the ones that already exist. So what happens when someone copies a part of the app or clones the entire app? Is it an intellectual property infringement? This brings us to…

I originally wrote this post before the the 136th INTA annual meeting in Hong Kong (1st INTA annual meeting in Asia). Folks who have been attending the INTA meetings will agree as to how awesome it can be and yet tiring, which requires careful planning. I thought of putting down a few of my insights that can be useful in planning your INTA trip.

I’d written about Trade Secrets a while back, and the only way to protect those secrets in India, (barring not revealing them to another soul) is through Non Disclosure Agreements (NDAs).Non Disclosure Agreements are basically agreements signed between two people or entities which put down in writing that confidential information is being passed from one person to another, the nature of the information, the purpose and most importantly an undertaking from the person receiving the information…

Recently, the Bombay High Court heard two appeals together to rule on the same point of law, i.e., whether the Court could go into the question of validity of the registration of a trade mark at an interlocutory stage when the defendant takes up the defense of invalidity of registration of the plaintiff’s trademark in an suit of infringement.

The first draft of the National IPR Policy dated December 19, 2014 was made available to the public amidst all the curiosity regarding the content of this policy and also the controversy concerning the basis of selection of the members of the Think Tank. We had earlier written about how the Think Tank came into being and the tasks that were entrusted to the panel. The DIPP Public Notice of November 13, 2014 had called upon interested persons to submit their comments on the National IPR…

Micromax is the protagonist and OnePlus is the antagonist. And with due apology to Cyanogen: it is the villain says the Delhi High Court in its last judgment before Winter Vacation.

Almost every morning most of the dailies these days carry at-least one article on intellectual property, whether it is about scriptwriters fighting producers on copyright for their stories or celebrities registering their names as trademarks, or the major issue of patents and drugs. As an IP lawyer, it’s great to see that there is some mention of my line of work, despite the fact that most journalists interchange the use and concepts of trademarks, copyright, patents and designs. Nonetheless it…

The law of intellectual property rights is all pervasive – regardless of the industry, product, service or line of work, there is always something in a business that can be protected under some stream of intellectual property. While protection under IP comes when the person with the knowledge discloses it to the government, through patents, copyright and designs, what happens if you don’t want to let other people know? What happens if the knowledge that you hold is something that can be…

A long journey from the hills of Darjeeling via Benaras, Lucknow, Madhya Pradesh, Tirupati and finally to Kanchipuram would be stressful indeed. But the goodies from all these places are what make us show off that we actually went there. Imagine having a hot cup of Darjeeling tea, or wearing Benarasi sari, or eating Tirupati laddu, or having a beautiful Tanjore painting on your wall. All these sure do sound nice. What if I told you that I grew the Darjeeling tea plant in my backyard, or painted…