Trademarks
Trade dress – A powerful brand element
On account of rising competitiveness in the commercial industry, the importance accorded to trade dress of a product is tremendous. Trade dress relates to the visual or other appearance of a product which includes its packaging, combination of colours, textures, graphics, shape and other composite…
Initiative by IPAB to expedite administrative proceedings
The Intellectual Property Appellate Board ("IPAB") was constituted by the Indian Government on September 15, 2003 to hear and adjudicate appeals against the decisions of the Registrar under the Indian Trade Marks Act, 1999 and the Indian Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and…
Indian Judiciary takes a stand on the concept of Trade Dress
Trade dress relates to the visual or other appearance of a product that may withal include its packaging, combination of colours, textures, graphics, shape which could be registered and protected from being exploited by competitors in connection to their business and service. The purpose of trade…
Recent developments at the Indian Trademarks Office and the road ahead
“Change is the only constant” and mid-way through 2016, we have witnessed some drastic changes brought about in the IP management and regime in India, starting with the bulk abandonment of 1,66,771 trademark applications in March 2016, to the stay order by the Delhi High Court, to the default…
Indian Trademarks Office initiates E-Registration Certificates
The Indian Trademarks Office (TMO) today issued a pragmatic public notice regarding the automation of the entire process of generation and issuance of registration certificates. The notice states that from August 01, 2016 the entire process of generation and dispatch of registration certificates…
“Plain Packaging” a Trademark infringement?
Plain packaging refers to laws or regulations requiring cigarettes and other tobacco products to be sold in standardized or generic packaging, without any stylized or attractive trademarks, logos, brand names or colors. In place of such brand names or logos, the packaging would largely be dominated…
Indian Trademark Office strikes again- Default notice to 9000 applications
Let’s brush our memories and remember the infamous order of the Indian Trademark Office abandoning more than one lakh trademark applications by end of March, 2016. The dreadful saga saw a lot of oppositions from trademark attorneys/agents across the country, a stay order from the Delhi High Court…
Exclusive rights to use trademark as a whole and not in parts
One of the well-established principles in Trademarks law has been the concept of comparing and considering a trademark in its totality. Many a times a trademark can be a composite trademark having various elements in it, and when the same is registered, the protection is provided to the mark as a…
Mediation in cases pending before the Trade Marks Registry, Delhi
With the amount of pending matters piling up across the five Trade Marks Registry offices, desperate measures have been taken by the Registry to reduce the burden and for speedy disposal of all pending matters. As a welcome attempt to deal with the issue of pendency, the Controller General of…
A ray of hope for the abandoned trademark applications in India
If you have been following our blogs lately, you might remember the one dated April 1, 2016, reporting the rampant abandonment of marks by the Indian Trademarks Registry, and the events that followed on April 4, 2016 where the Trademark Office issued a public notice in order to bring order to the…