Sound Board

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

I’m sure many of us, lawyers and trademark owners, would have come across examination reports that have required association between your mark and the applicant’s other marks (mostly). In cases where the mark that we have to associate it with has crossed its date of validity or has been withdrawn by the applicant, what happens then? While the law is silent on this point, the law of logic will kick in. Here I am going to mention few provisions of the law which in effect will say that both the…

A recent order by the Delhi High Court reiterates the importance of a carefully thought out and drafted agreements. This particular matter was one concerning breach of a franchise agreement which entailed confidential information, trade secrets, get-up, layout, arrangement, trade-dress of the Plaintiff’s fitness centres and spas. The Plaintiff (Ozone Fitness) filed a suit against Pure Fitness and others and sought an interim injunction. This case is definitely one of its kind given the nature…

The other day I was just walking on the road trying to get somewhere when someone just handed me this pamphlet which stated that the coaching centre was providing some kind of training to get a hang of this particular software at a certain fee. I passed it on to one of my friends who I thought might be interested in taking up the course. That is when I was told that this can’t be legit as the actual course costed twice the amount.

There have been several instances where I've looked at a menu card at a pub with a really cool cocktail name and wondered if they've trademarked it. Never did I once imagine that the ones that are common and used by all are in fact the ones that are registered trademarks. So would use of these trademarks by restaurants and pubs in their menu card amount to trademark infringement? There are several possibilities in connection with this and before I get to that, here’s a list of cocktail names…

The general notion, I’m sure is that copyright is a bundle of rights which is primarily an economic right (unless you are Gandhi, who resisted to enforce the copyright in his work for economic gain as economic rights) more than it being an indicator of the source of origin of the goods as in the case of trademarks. So what happens after you have assigned, either wholly or partially, the copyright in your work to someone else? Does that mean you have lost all your rights in the work that you…

There’s a rather common meme that was doing the rounds on social media which stated that “India is a country where we first become an “Engineer” and then think of what we really want to become” The number of people who identified with the statement was staggering and it’s not too hard to imagine. With medicine and engineering the top two things Indian parents want their kids to study (gotta be thankful to my folks who let me study law) it’s not hard to believe. The All India Council for…

As a software developer, there are a lot of things that need to be taken into consideration at the time of negotiation with the person engaging you to develop the software. It is very crucial to read the agreements that you might sign. On the other hand, as a person engaging a third party to develop software, you would always want exclusivity to the said software and accordingly, would like to include terms in a contract favouring that. So what happens when there a battle of ownership between…

The Delhi High Court recently granted an injunction against India Circus on a suit filed by Good Earth for passing-off of their designs, particularly for motifs, logos, patterns of Serai, Periyar, Vrindavan, Lotus, Bali Mynah, Rose Princess and Falcon on products. The Court has discussed passing-off in case of designs and also the concept of novelty (which hasn’t been discussed much) in terms of a design being old in itself but when applied to a new article to which it has never been previously…