Sound Board

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

The most common question arising now in the minds of people, especially entrepreneurs, is if it is not possible to apply for registering a trademark by themselves, without getting any assistance from a trademark lawyer. The misconception is that trademark application is nothing but a mere filling out of forms. But the most important question to ask is : “does the process end there..or on the contrary, begin there?”

I’m pretty certain that most people with Facebook accounts in India have seen the Prime Minister’s post on his Facebook page wishing people for Dhanteras on October 21, 2014. While the photograph was visually striking, it appears that someone who knew the photographer tagged him on the post since he didn’t know that his photograph was being used.

Shakespeare’s ‘what’s in a name’ was apt for utopian times when he was of the view that a rose would smell like a rose even if it were called by another name. Today, in the world of competition, when celebrities are trying to out-do each other in the race for fame and endorsements, trademark rights are significantly important. Lately, Shahrukh Khan has been in the news for reasons other than the release of his latest film Happy New Year. A number of newspapers recently reported that the actor’s…

We had recently written about an order that was passed by the Controller General of Patent, designs and Trademarks restricting the amendments that can be made to a trademark application and hoped that IPAA would appeal this matter. It has come to our notice that IPAA in fact took up this matter before the Delhi High Court and the Court quashed the order passed by the Controller General of Patent, Designs and Trademarks on October 9, 2014.

International Non-Proprietary Names (INN) are globally recognized names for pharmaceutical substances or active pharmaceutical ingredients and are also known as generic names. The International Non-Proprietary Names were first initiated by the World Health Assembly in 1950 with a view to designate universally recognisable names for pharmaceutical substances. In furtherance to this, the WHO has published a list of over 7000 generic names since its inception. The WHO guidelines states the…

The status “ advertised before acceptance ” or simply called ABA, implies that the mark has been advertised in the weekly Trademark Journal, though with certain reservations. Once the mark gets advertised, the opposition period of four months begins during which the applicant has to wait and watch to check if the mark gets opposed!

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.

The Competition Commission of India (“CCI”) entrusted with the job of maintaining healthy competition and curbing abuse of monopoly in the market place was tasked with examining the actions of Super Cassettes Industries (“T Series”). The Informant/Complainant in this matter was HT Media Limited which runs Fever 104 FM a radio station and T Series is music label from whom they were licensing music. (For more on copyright and Licensing Music click here).

Magic tricks don’t cease to surprise and most often, they leave us befuddled with a lot of questions. But if we knew how the trick was performed, would we be as amused? Probably not. And that’s exactly why the magicians’ community thinks it is important to protect their tricks under the law. This is where intellectual property comes into play and the question is which branch of IP will protect magic tricks. In this article, I will discuss the patentability (if at all patentable),…

Having written about assignment of trademarks in India in one of my earlier articles, I wanted to write about licensing in India as the two concepts can be confusingly similar to those who need to choose. Apart from pointing out the differences, this article also will comprehensively explain the concept of licensing of trademarks in India because we live in this era of globalization, where licensing has become so common for people who already have a big market for their trademark and for people…