Sound Board

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

In my previous article, I’d written about how different aspects of the video game (story line, source code, characters, background music, screen shots, packaging) can be protected under the laws of copyright. In addition to this, there are different aspects of the trademark law that a game developer will have to keep in mind while creating a game is a world of unending possibilities.

Nowadays, the Internet has become the most popular medium for commercial organisations to promote themselves. This is because the internet has no boundaries or closing hours. Every person who wishes to use the internet as a medium needs a domain name. A domain name is nothing but a network address that helps identify a particular entity on the internet. Usually, a domain name consists of two parts – the top level domain (TLD), which is used to identify the organisation that owns it or the…

When I first came across the medicines SIZOPIN and SYZOPIN, I honestly thought it might have just been a typographical error and that they originate from the same source. Much to my astonishment, they are in fact two different drugs used for treating almost the similar thing. So naturally there had to be a suit for infringement by the one against the other.

I’m sure most of us have or at least try to have a signature so unique that you wish is associated solely with you whether you are a celebrity or not. Some of us are also very particular about our signatures and we feel that it defines our personality. I’m sure we’ve all come across articles titled “so what does your signature mean if you draw a horizontal line underneath with two dots below that” and like things. Leaving the personality you are aside, have you come across a signature so…

I have a startup story and it’s not a pleasant one. So if you’re expecting to read tales of college grads hunched over laptops in a basement, who created something unique, got funded and are billionaires by the time they are twenty eight, stop reading right away.

The David-Goliath tussle in the trademark world is an unending one. It is a scenario where a big company is suing a small company and most often, the big company is made out to be a trademark bully. Though that might be true, in my opinion, it has more to do with protecting one’s trademark rights keeping in mind the business interests and the losses that the company is likely to incur as a result of such use by a third party. So if the actions of the smaller company are likely to affect the…

India became a member of the Madrid Protocol on July 8, 2013 and since then has received about 13768 applications designating India and has filed 155 applications under the Madrid Protocol. While there have been several debates on the best route to take in terms of protecting international brands in India, and both have good arguments, there is one issue that I would like to deal with today – the claim of use of your trademark in India.

Well, if you have a unique surname then you’ll not only have difficulties in explaining to people how to get it right but you will also have the difficulty in getting it registered as a trademark in India. Having said that, there are obviously many discrepancies between the law and the judgments and what is actually happening.

They should not be placed side by side to find out if there are differences; rather the mark should be taken as a whole.