Sound Board

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

Over the last few decades, the world economy has witnessed a paradigm shift as far as transaction of goods and services are concerned. Companies have expanded their business operations and established their manufacturing units across the globe and services have traversed boundaries, which has in effect led to the upswing of branding. Intellectual property plays a pivotal role in the trade related aspects and trademark law in such cases comes into play when issues regarding registration of mark…

A year ago, we wrote about the tentative amendment to the Trademark Rules which involved the increase in filing fees.The Trademark Rules have been Amended and published in the Official Gazette of India issued by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion.

So you’ve planned and taken all necessary precautions before filing or instructing your Counsel in India to file your trademark application in India and it has been filed, and now you’re waiting. (Also see 4 steps to register a trademark in India – The fast and cost effective way) While the trademark office has taken it upon itself to teach all counsels how much of a virtue patience is, on some occasions they may not be at fault. It may well be, that the trademark office is in fact waiting on…

In 1996, Siddharth Mehta launched an online matchmaking, matrimonial and wedding services portal under the name and mark Shaadi.com. Four years later in February 2000, the Plaintiff was incorporated. The Plaintiff belongs to the People Group of Companies. They own several well-known domain names, websites, brands and trademarks. One of these is Shaadi.com.

One of the main benefits of working as an intellectual property lawyer is that I get to know the latest in everything. Whether it is the latest technology through patents, products through brand names and designs or movies/songs/art etc through copyright, I get to live vicariously in the present and near future through my clients. Oddly enough, this level of knowledge as a natural extension seems to extend to the latest slang!

The issue dates back to 2nd February, 2012 and 8th June, 2012 when the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks (CG) issued an Office Order No: 1 of 2012 and Office Order No:16 of 2012 respectively, that placed restrictions on amendments that can be made to a trademark application, more importantly the restriction in respect of amending the date of usage of the trademark in India.

The Plaintiff had filed a suit for permanent injunction restraining the defendant from selling, distributing, advertising or dealing in alcoholic beverages especially Indian made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) or goods of any description bearing trade mark 'Collector's Choice' or any other mark deceptively similar to plaintiff's trade mark 'Officer's Choice'.

Lawyers in general are not the most loved people on the planet. There is always a sense of caution when we’re dealt with. It’s also probably why the legal profession has two patron saints St. Ives and St. Thomas Moore (must be twice as difficult for us to get into heaven). Anyway leaving God and the Saints out of it, in any Company (more so in an FMCG one) the In-House legal team is generally disliked to a great extent by the Marketing team and are at loggerheads with each other on a fairly…

A recent study conducted by ‘We Are Social’ found that despite these slow speeds, Internet users in India spend almost 5 hours on the net every day, with 40% of that time spent on social media. Going by these statistics, Indian users roughly spend about 2 hours on social media and which platform they use will probably differ based of age, profession and purpose for use. So those of us who fit this description and spend most of those 2 hours on Facebook, would have come across several internet…

Champagne, Puma, Darjeeling Tea and Ford are known all over the world. A common man would recognize the given names as famous brands. On looking closely it can be realized that the above mentioned names do not belong to the same category.