Sound Board

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

Intellectual property laws provide protection for some works under both copyright and design law. At the face of it, the law on this point seems rather clear. However, interpretation of Section 15 of the Copyright Act in conjunction with the definition of “Design” under the Design Act makes it slightly tricky. A recent case decided by the Delhi High Court has tried to differentiate between a copyright and a design on the basis of the nature of the work and its industrial application. The Judge…

My science teacher in school (I’m certain most them around the world) always told us how science is connected to everything in our day to day lives. It was quite amusing to understand how it worked practically and I wondered if it was in fact possible to connect something else like we connect science to our daily lives. I have come to realise that I feel the same way about intellectual property and constantly connect it to the things we come across in the course of our daily life – Mobile…

The Controller of Patents, Designs and Trademarks recently through a public notice dated January 2, 2015 brought to the notice of the public that the Design rules have been amended with effect from December 30, 2014.

A couple of months back we’d written about the basics of protection of Semi-Conductor Integrated Circuit Layout Design (SICLD) in India and more importantly how there hadn’t been a single application filed, or registered till date.

Ever wanted to get something you designed registered but never knew how to go about it? Surprisingly, the procedure to get your design registered is fairly easy and guess what? You can get your design registered in about 8-12 months! Trust me, getting anything registered with an Intellectual Property office in India under 12 months is nothing less than a miracle. So here is how you go about filing a design application in India.

At some point in a guy’s life, he just has to buy jewellery! Whether it’s for a girlfriend or partner, going through row after row of earrings, necklaces, rings and other adornments for someone else is one of the inescapable truths of life. Shopping for jewellery has changed a great deal as well - from discretely picking up something on a holiday (but having to sheepishly empty your baggage at airport security amid grins from your folks) to browsing through and buying the latest visually…

A recent judgment of the Bombay High Courtt that I came across addressed issues relating to the laws of design which I found very interesting, mainly because they weren’t issues that were touched upon previously. On reading the judgment, I found that it was the Delhi High Court which had first examined these issues in detail and what was also interesting to read was the dissenting opinion by one of the judges.

Tech start-ups seem to be the flavour of the day in most entrepreneur meets but amidst the wide array of software companies there is an oft neglected team of people who work exclusively on building hardware. The silent workers who have it more difficult in terms of securing funding, gaining visibility and pretty much anything.

The Indian Intellectual Property Office invited comments today for the recently published draft amendment rules (“draft rules”) for Design filings in India. The draft rules can be found here.