2008

Scrabble vs Scrabulous: Reports on the Delhi High Court Judgment

/ By / Copyright, Trademark

After the Delhi High Court verdict in the high ticket Scrabble vs Scrabulous litigation, reports on this judgment have been pouring in. In an interesting editorial titled “Capitalism Kills the Fun “, the Mint states: “A court decision in India on Wednesday will be of much interest to hundreds of thousands in the global online community. A popular blog on intellectual property rights, SpicyIP, reported that the Delhi high court has ruled on a lawsuit against two Kolkata-based brothers’ online […]

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SpicyIP:Patents for a Smoke !!!

/ By / Patent

The Controller of Patents and Designs has issued an advertisement related to Godfrey Philips’ new invention a Cigarette cum matchbox in the latest patent journal According to the company, which filed application on October 31, 2005, the improved cigarette packet with match box comprised a slide having side flaps on two longitudinal sides and end closures at the two transverse sides.’ Godfrey Phillips, which manufactures leading cigarette brands – Four Square, Stellar, Red and White and Cavanders – aims at

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Breaking "Scrabulous" News: Mattel Wins on Trademark Claim but Loses on Copyright

/ By / Copyright

The Delhi High Court issued its decision today in the controversial and widely reported Scrabble vs Scrabulous matter, involving a global giant (Mattel) and 2 small Indian innovators (Rajat and Jayant Agarwala of Kolkata, who ran RJ Software). This is the gist of the decision: Trademarks i) The defendants (Agarwala brothers) were restrained from using SCRABULOUS, SCRABBLE or any other deceptively similar trademark. ii) The brothers were also restrained from metatagging, hyperlinking or including the infringing trademarks in the source

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GSK, EMR’s and the Supreme Court: A Legal Conundrum?

/ By / Uncategorized

Pursuant to Sai’s well written post outlining the various nuances of the Supreme Court judgment in the Exclusive Marketing Rights (EMR) case involving GSK, the following issue springs to mind: What will GSK ultimately achieve from this order? It appears to me that the net effect of the order is merely academic i.e that GSK would be vindicated in its stand that the Controller was wrong in denying its applicaiton for an EMR. To recapitulate the essence of the order,

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Supreme Court on Exclusive Marketing Rights

/ By / Uncategorized

This post discusses the recent decision of the Supreme Court on continuance of Exclusive Marketing Rights (EMR) delivered in a special leave petition involving GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and the Controller of Patents and Designs. But before that, SpicyIP thanks Sandeep Rathod of GenericIPGuy blog for forwarding this decision to us. SpicyIP also congratulates Mr.Pravin Anand of Anand and Anand who was the lead counsel in this case. This month alone, Mr.Anand has won 3 Supreme Court IP decisions, the first one

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SpicyIP Poll: Does the Name "Hari Puttar" Make You Think of "Harry Potter"?

/ By / Copyright

I’m assuming that most of our readers are familiar with the Harry Potter vs Hari Puttar controversy before the Delhi High Court. Justice Reva Khetrapal is expected to issue her decision any day now. For those that came in late, do check out Sumathi’s well researched posts on this big ticket litigation, that is expected to delineate the scope of “trademark” rights over movie titles. Prashant also raised a very interesting “free speech” issue in his post here. Article 19(1)

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Making India Innovative: A New Indian Innovation Act?

/ By / Innovation

Close on the heels of a Bayh Dole type bill that we have been blogging about, the government is considering introducing an “Innovation Act”. News reports regarding this legislation began pouring in since 2007. See this FICCI press release here and this Economic Times Report which announced this legislative endeavour on Sept 11, 2007. The ET report noted that: ““We want to bring in an India Innovation Act to spur innovation in India, for which we would like Ficci (Federation

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Potter/Puttar arguments come to a close

/ By / Trademark

After Prashant’s engaging post on Potter, parodies, and the right to laugh, here’s a quick update on the Hari Puttar case, for those of you who are still keen on following the developments. Arguments concluded earlier this week, after the defendants (Mirchi Movies et al) attempted to establish that there was evident dissimilarity in the two titles in question. Indeed, the defense argued that there ought to be different tests for film titles and trademarks, especially keeping in mind the

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Delhi High Court considers questions of IP Jurisdiction in Banyan Tree case: Omnipresent or still rooted??

/ By / Trademark

Just when Indian IP started to move towards complex questions and policy decisions, the Banyan Tree case heard by the Delhi High Court comes along to address basic questions of jurisdiction. The case revolves around the decision of the appropriate forum for a case to be heard in the cases of jurisdiction where the cause of action lies on the World Wide Web. The case that was brought before Justice Bhat of the Delhi High Court is straightforward, and the

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DRMs for Games too

/ By / Copyright

A recent post by our friends at IPKAT on games + DRMs (Digital Rights Management) piqued my curiousity and had me heading towards google for more information on the topic (A few months ago, SpicyIP carried a post on DRMs as well). As it turns out, gamers are reacting very strongly against a move by Electronic Arts to incorporate a new DRM copyright protection system in their new game “Spore” which doesn’t allow more than 3 installations of the game.

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