Sound Board

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

It seems to have become a norm in India these days to rake up some controversy before a film’s release. It is almost always either intellectual property (copyright or trademark) violation or defamation. This time apparently it is both!

I just looked back on our posts and noticed that we have been bringing to you many posts about the changes in the Trademark, Patent and Designs Office but haven’t been giving due attention to the Copyright Office (not that much has happened in a while)

The Indian Intellectual Property Office invited comments today for the recently published draft amendment rules (“draft rules”) for Design filings in India. The draft rules can be found here.

Last Friday, the Patent (Amendment) Rules, 2014 (the “Rules”) came into effect. The public notice issued by the Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks summarises that the Rules basically deal with a revised official fee structure and the inclusion of a new category of applicants called the “small entity”.

Following my earlier post, I am incredibly excited about the recent launch of yet some more forms being made available online. With this launch, the Trademarks Office has made a total of 57 forms available online.

To all who read this, my aim here is to share something that I have been brooding about...It may even be something “you” have been brooding about.. Hopefully someone or maybe even the Indian Trademark Office will come up with a satisfying answer?

Dumb Starbucks impressed and gathered quite a lot of customers for free coffee on the day of their opening in Los Angeles last week. They ran out of coffee eventually but the publicity continued! Oh, they aren't associated with the REAL Starbucks and even admit that they consider them as models. Naturally, Starbucks wasn't too happy with their trademark being infringed.

For those of you who use (and love, maybe?) the e-filing system (“system”) of the Trademarks Office, things just got lovelier. Until the evening of February 05, 2014, the Trademark Office’s system allowed trademark applications (under various forms) along with a couple of requests such as responding to the examination report issued by the Trademarks Office, filing a request for inclusion of excess characters in the specification of goods or services to be filed online.