Sound Board

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

Passing off is a form of tort, and its substantive part is founded upon the common law principles. The general principle of passing-off states that no man can have any right to represent his goods as the goods of another person. The gist of the concept of passing-off is that the goods are, in effect, telling a falsehood about themselves; they are saying something about themselves which is calculated to mislead. The spirit of law contemplates that unfair competition destroys honest business and…

Infopreneurship is the new buzz word and means creating original content information products then monetizing it in entrepreneurial ways. These infopreneurs, or entrepreneurs who sell information, leverage information in public domain extensively to reach mass audiences. Infopreneurship is one of a kind and an evolving business concept based on a title of a creative work.

It is the inherent purpose of law to serve as an instrument for the betterment of humanity. But in a quest for majoritarian or popular law, sometimes we tend to overlook an important section of people who need protection of our laws the most, namely the disabled. The law relating to trademarks is a similarly unexplored area of law where disability rights are yet to leave their mark. Cutting to the chase, here’s my argument regarding as to how a non-conventional trademark of smell guarantees not…

It is human nature to take credit of his hard work, especially in today’s times where there is cut throat competition; Man wants to carve a niche for himself in any field he plunges into. Man wants to stand out in a crowd and leave a mark of his identity and distinctiveness. He wants to convey a message to this world to the effect that, the feat he has achieved is something which is not achievable by everyone. In the field of trade in particular, quality is of utmost importance because a…

In today’s world, where consumers purchase products not based on quality or usefulness, but instead are carried away by the brand name and trade symbol which accompany the product, protection of the distinctiveness of a trademark is of the utmost importance. Trademark dilution is a claim which the owner of a famous trademark can make to prevent others from using a mark which decreases the value or distinctiveness, or tarnishes the reputation, of the famous mark. Many scholars argue on whether…

The respondent, Malhotra Book Depot was a partnership firm which registered the mark MBD on November 23, 1970. The registration was subsequently renewed once in 1977. Over the years the partnership changed twice and when the most recent partners applied for a legal use certificate of the trademark registration (certified information of the mark from the Trademark Office). They were informed that there was no information of the trademark registration on the records of the trademark office…

Going through over thousand trademarks published each week in the Indian Trade Marks Journal is a rather cumbersome task, but the marks that you come across in there sometimes are very interesting. Some unique, some brilliant and some down- right hilarious.

The Selvam and Selvam blogging competition is open to students interested in trademarks and trademarks law.

One question I am often asked regarding trademarks whenever I discuss IP law with a group of young budding students, entrepreneurs or startup companies is "How to register a trademark in India?". There are several articles and blogs that explains how to register a trademark in India in one way or the other but I hope that this post will be comprehensive enough to answer most of them.

A common misconception among many entrepreneurs is that they should use a name that best describes their business, products or services. Their intention is to enable customers to easily remember them. Some tech businesses use generic names so as to increase web traffic on key word searches. However, having a descriptive or generic name for your startup, products or services is not a good strategy for your growing business. The name you select should score high on the degree of protectiveness.…