By Dr. Mukundan Chakrapani

It has been an explosive opening quarter for investments in early stage ventures. The information technology sector alone has attracted a whopping US$612 million of the over US$1 billion reported investments from January to March, 2015. Indeed, this must be music to the ears of the technocrats behind the Digital India (...

By Vindhya Srinivasamani Introduction Since the inception of the Patents Act, 1970, Indian patent law has been a process patent regime in the field of pharmaceuticals. Based on the recommendations of a committee chaired by Judge Rajagopala Ayyangar in 1959, product patent protection in the pharmaceutical sector was abolished in order to ensure that medicines were available to the public at ...

By Dr. Gaurav Gupta The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) formed a six member committee on 22nd October, 2014 to formulate National IPR Policy. The committee, referred to as the “IPR Think Tank”, is headed by Justice Prabha Sridevan, former judge at Madras High Court and Chairperson of Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). The draft National IPR Policy was released ...

By Aastha Aggarwal and Konpal Rae Introduction The registration of designs in India is governed by the Designs Act, 2000, which was made effective from May 11, 2001, and the Design Rules, 2001. As per the Act, a design registration protects the features of shape, configuration, pattern, ornamentation or composition of lines or colors applied to articles. Since a design registration seeks to...

By Sarita Rout A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court recently dwelt upon the rules for determining deceptive similarity and consequent trade mark infringement when the conflicting trade marks under consideration are composite marks i.e. marks comprising of more than one element. In the matter of South India Beverages Pvt. Ltd. v. General Mills Marketing Inc.[see end note 1], the appellan...

By Vindhya S. Mani The Division Bench of the Delhi High Court vide its recent order dated 7th November, 2014 in Maj. (Retd.) Sukesh Behl & Another v. Koninklijke Philips Electronics [FAO (OS) No. 16 of 2014] upheld the order of the Single Judge of the Delhi High Court [2013 (56) PTC 570 (Del)] holding that revocation of a patent is not automatic under Section 64(1)(m) of the Patents Act, 1970...

By Vindhya S. Mani The Bombay High Court vide its judgment dated 15th September, 2014 in ITM Trust v. Educate India Society [see end note 1] granted an injunction in favour of the plaintiff, ITM Trust, against the defendant, Educate India Society, from using the mark "ITM" or any other deceptively similar mark in respect of technical and educational services so as to infringe ITM Trust's regi...

By Sarita Rout The Chancery Division of the Community Trade Mark Court recently decided [see end note 1] against Victoria's Secret UK Ltd. [hereinafter referred to as the 'defendant'] in an infringement action brought by Thomas Pink Ltd. [hereinafter referred to as the 'claimant'] in respect of its registered trade marks in European Union and a series of two marks in United Kingdom [hereinaft...

By Vindhya S. Mani The Division Bench of the Bombay High Court by its recent order [see end note 1] dated 15th July, 2014 upheld the order of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) [see end note 2] dated 4th March, 2013 granting a compulsory license to Natco Pharmaceuticals (Natco) under Section 84 of the Patents Act, 1970 (the Act). The compulsory license was granted to Natco to ma...

By Vindhya S. Mani A license agreement or an assignment deed is an agreement between a right holder and the licensee and/or assignee wherein the right holder permits the licensee and/or assignee to use rights owned by the right holder in exchange for a consideration, whether in the form of a one-time settlement or a periodic royalty. Generally an agreement may be in writing or oral but Sectio...

By Jasneet Kaur       A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court in a recent decision dated 10-12-2013 held that the television commercial which compares the product ‘Pepsodent Germicheck’ with ‘Colgate ST’ is not per se disparaging. However, the print advertisement published by the respondent (Hindustan Unilever Limited or ‘HUL’) involving the same comparison was held as prima facie disparag...

By Subhash Bhutoria       Contributing to the growing domestic IP jurisprudence, the Delhi High Court has recently upheld unfair competition tort in a matter pertaining to data and information emanating from a cricketing event and held that such information qualifies as quasi-property. This article briefly discusses the said emerging trend of protecting property rights through common law rem...