Sound Board

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

Domain names play a vital role in business as it has been used by the common public to identify the business. A dispute in relation to the domain name arises when any party registers an earlier trademark as their domain name. It is necessary that the trademark of the complainant must be identical or confusingly similar to the second level domain of the disputed domain name. This requirement rules out complaints raised by an owner of the unregistered trademark. Domain names can also be…

As we all know, advocates and solicitors ought to obtain a power of attorney from their clients including non-resident clients, in order to facilitate the Advocate’s firm or Solicitor’s firm to act in its professional capacity for the client. Many a time, besides acting as Constituted Attorneys i.e. power of attorney holders, advocates also act as the advocates on record.

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…

There’s an instinct within most us that prompts us to lie or state the most ludicrous things when accused of being in the wrong. This primordial feeling (which may be what helped us survive) of justifying and rationalizing one’s actions is most evident in negotiations with trademark infringers and domain squatters (someone who registers a domain name with the intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else). While there are judicial fora to retrieve domains like the…