Sound Board

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

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…

Section 8 of the Patents Act, 1970 casts an obligation upon the applicant of a patent under this Act who is also prosecuting the same or substantially the same invention outside India, to disclose details regarding corresponding foreign applications from time to time. It was based on the suggestions of Ayyangar Committee Report that Section 8 was incorporated into the Patents Act. It was with a view to ensure that the Indian Examiners are in the know of the status of corresponding foreign…

The law of intellectual property rights is all pervasive – regardless of the industry, product, service or line of work, there is always something in a business that can be protected under some stream of intellectual property. While protection under IP comes when the person with the knowledge discloses it to the government, through patents, copyright and designs, what happens if you don’t want to let other people know? What happens if the knowledge that you hold is something that can be…

Yes you can unless there is proper policing done, you are highly likely to lose your trademark rights. In my previous article I had mentioned how getting your mark registered is just the first step to the long battle ahead because even if your trademark is approved, people can challenge and steal your trademark and can do so by legal means. It sure does sound oxymoronic; how can one “legally” steal something, but if you read on you’ll know exactly what I mean. So to put this in perspective,…