Sound Board

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

As most readers will be aware, the period of time between 2020-2021 has been marked with unprecedented disaster and suffering. 2020 started out with the Australian wildfires, which was followed by rising geo-political tensions, and then of course, COVID-19 spread rapidly across the globe. Once COVID-19 vaccines were invented, concern then shifted to availability of said vaccines across the world. This was especially concerning in the poorer countries of the developing world. It goes without…

Section 11(1) of the Designs Act, 2000, grants copyright protection to a design for a period of ten years from the date of registration. However, if priority is claimed then the registration period is calculated as being ten years from the priority date. Further, as per Section 11(2) of the Designs Act, 2000, a design may be renewed once for an additional period of 5 years anytime within the initial ten-year period of registration

When a trademark is used to a point where the consumers begin to associate it to a particular product rather than its source, then the trademark is said to have become genericized or undergone Trademark Genericide, wherein it becomes the common descriptive name of a certain product and the trademark owner no longer has the exclusive right over the use of the said trademark. Some examples of popular trademarks that have become genericized over time are ‘Cellophane’ tape, ‘Escalator’, ‘Thermos’,…

In Metso Outotec Corporation v. the Registrar of Trade Marks, appeals were preferred before the Bombay High Court from orders passed by the Registrar of Trade Marks in respect of trademark applications for the word mark SISUPER and device mark SISUPER bearing application nos. 4433306 and 4435364 respectively (IR Nos. 1513304 and 1512932). After a perusal of the facts of the case, the Court set aside and quashed the decisions of the Senior Examiner of Trade Marks refusing the mark “SISUPER”.

The Delhi High Court on April 5, 2021 dismissed two applications filed by Britannia Industries against ITC Ltd for alleged trademark infringement and passing off by the latter.

Under the USA’s Post Registration Audit Program, a declaration of use must be filed between the fifth and sixth year of the validity of the registration of the trademark. So, the Applicant has the burden of proof to show proper usage of the mark for all the goods and services provided under the relevant classes. However, India being a common law country and a first-to-use jurisdiction, one would assume that the use of a trademark would be of prime importance and would consequently, be a…

In the case of Hindustan Unilever Ltd v. An Opposing Party, the Bombay High Court called out the practice of seeking separate reliefs of injunction for passing off and infringement when pleadings were presented in respect of matters of trademark infringement.

In the part one of this article we discussed about the general understanding of AI divided as ANI and AGI, ANI’s adoption and influence in the copyright law, and complexities arising out of the adoption of ANI while generating copyrightable works. Further, let us understand the intricacies involved in the examination of ANI. What could happen if ANI generated works are granted copyright protection, and other complexities that could arise if ANI is left unsupervised.

In this day and age, internet is a powerful tool for advertising with limitless reach and keyword advertising is the most popular form of digital advertising. It has generated massive revenue streams for search engines offering the service, for instance, Google’s ad revenue amounted to US dollars 146 billion and majority of the advertising revenue came from keyword advertising.

The Patents (Second Amendment) Rules, 2020 (hereinafter referred to as the ‘amendment rules’) that came into force on November 4, 2020, primarily recategorized the Applicants and the fees paid by them for filing and prosecution of a patent. Presently, the amendment has classified applicants