Escalation in the Trademark Fee – Trade Mark Rules, 2017 comes into force
The much-awaited Trade Marks Rules 2017 has finally come into force as of March 6, 2017.
Although the new rules aim at simplifying the trademark prosecution as a whole by reducing the number of forms from 75 to 8, incorporating provisions for expedited registration of trademarks and so on, the massive escalation in the fee even more than the proposed amendments in 2015 is quite evident.…
Copyright protection for jokes – Not a joke anymore?
Thou shal not steal is definitely the underlying point of all intellectual property rights, and Twitter reaffirmed this by deleting a tweet on a complaint made by Olga Lexell, a freelance writer from Los Angeles. Her premise was that she’s a freelance writer who makes her living writing jokes and since that’s her creation (intellectual property), other users didn’t have the right to re-post it…
University Patents – Can your project work be patented?
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…
5 common defenses I’ve heard domain squatters use during negotiation
There’s an instinct within most us that prompts us to lie or state the most ludicrous things when accused of being in the wrong. This primordial feeling (which may be what helped us survive) of justifying and rationalizing one’s actions is most evident in negotiations with trademark infringers and domain squatters (someone who registers a domain name with the intent to profit from the goodwill of…
Cyber Crimes and Domain Hosts – Where does the liability lie?
Domain hosts are the providers of domain names, for instance, if you want to buy abcxyz.in, you will approach the .IN registry or any of registrars accredited (godaddy.com, name.com, rediff.com etc.) by them in order to secure a domain name. Likewise, you can find a number of registrars if you want to register .com, .biz, .net, .org etc. Basically, the domain host provides you space in the…
Getting Back Your .IN Domain Name – The INDRP Way
Trademarks are to the real world, what domain names are to the virtual world; Trademarks are vital to every business because they help consumers associate the goods or services provided by them to that particular trademark thereby building reputation. Similarly, the Internet is the first port of call for anyone who wants to find information about anything and therefore, it is essential for a…
Trademark and Internet : Domain Name and Dispute Resolution
An Internet domain name is an alpha-numeric mnemonic device that can be mapped onto an Internet Protocol ("IP") address to enable users to "surf the Web" more easily than if they had to remember the details of each IP address they wanted to visit. Black’s Law Dictionary defines domain names as
“the words and characters that website owners designate for their registered Internet addresses. All…
Vulgar Trademarks ; Suit up – It’s time for free love.
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.
For the uninitiated, once a Trademark is filed, and examined, if the Trademark Office finds no concern or those concerns have been…