Author name: Mathews P. George

Mathews is a graduate of West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata. He pursued LLM in 'IP and Competition Law' from the Munich Intellectual Property Law Centre (a joint collaboration of Max Plank Institute for Innovation and Competition, University of Augsburg, Technical University of Munich and George Washington University, Washington). His areas of practice include Technology Law in general (IPR, Competition Law, Data Protection Law etc) Corporate Law, Contract Law and Public Law (Constitutional Law and Criminal Law). He practises law and policy at both national and international levels. Presently, he is in Kerala. In addition to litigation before various courts in Kerala, he is also involved in various national and international policy and academic initiatives.

Producers of ‘Youngistan’ accused of infringement

/ By / Copyright

  According to Bollywood Hungama, PepsiCo. sent a legal notice to the producers of the upcoming movie ‘Youngistan’ alleging copyright infringement of its tagline – “Yeh Hai Youngistan Meri Jaan”.  Livemint, in its report dated 20 February 2014, stated that PepsiCo had now moved court claiming trademark violation. According to the report, PepsiCo sought a permanent injunction against the release of the movie, which is expected to hit theatres on 28 March 2014. Also, the matter has been listed for […]

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Multinational drug-major BMS signed Licence Agreement with UN backed Medicines Patent Pool

/ By / Patent

Multinational drug-major Bristol-Myers Squibb (“BMS”) entered into a Licence Agreement dated 11 December 2013 (“Agreement”) with the United Nations-backed Medicines Patent Pool (“MPP”) for the AIDS drug “Atazanavir”. As per the press release, this will benefit 110 developing countries which account for 88.5 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries. We had earlier discussed about MPP in several posts [See here and here for the more pertinent.] In this post, I intend to introduce you all to the

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Jurisdiction in a composite suit: A case study

/ By / Copyright, Trademark, Uncategorized

Introduction I intend to examine the law on ‘jurisdiction’ in a composite suit involving Copyright Act, 1957 (“1957 Act”) and the Trade and Merchandise Marks Act, 1958 (“1958 Act”). The contours of the discussion are limited to the recent Supreme Court judgment in M/s. Paragon Rubber Industries (“Plaintiff”) v. M/s. Pragathi Rubber Mills & Ors (“Defendants”) WITH M/s. Pragathi Rubber Mills & Ors v.   M/s. Paragon Rubber Industries (“Instant Judgment”), which was decided on appeals challenging the judgment of the

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Ex-parte interim injunction awarded in Vringo Infrastructure Inc and Anr v. Xu Dejun and Ors.

/ By / Patent

Facts The plaintiffs, in the present suit, sought permanent injunction against the defendants restraining them from infringing the right of the plaintiffs in their registered patent No. IN 243980 titled as ‘Mobile Station Operable with Radio Access Network and a Packet Data Serving Node and a Method for Operating Such Mobile Station’ (“Patent”).The plaintiffs also sought for rendition of accounts and damages. In the meanwhile, they sought interim injunction against the defendants. It was claimed that the Patent is one

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Vagabond Skor Varberg AB won the trademark dispute against Italian firm Vagabond SPA in IPAB

/ By / Trademark

Swedish apparel manufacturing firm Vagabond Skor Varberg AB (“Applicant”) won the trademark [Image from here.] dispute against Italian firm Vagabond SPA in the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (“IPAB”). [The Order is available here.] The latter opposed the attempt of the Applicant to register the mark “VAGABOND” on the ground that the latter enjoyed trademark registration over the same mark (Registration No. 551738). The Applicant filed an application with the IPAB seeking the removal of the said trademark “VAGABOND” in Class

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The Draft Intellectual Property Policy of South Africa

/ By / Data Exclusivity, Innovation, Patent

The South African government released its much awaited ‘Draft National Policy on Intellectual Property, 2013’ (“Draft Policy”) for public consultation. According to the news report, the pro-reform civil society collective cautiously welcomed the release of the Draft Policy. The civil society collective inter alia advocated for reforming the South Africa’s IP laws such as a) adoption and implementation of an examination system for all pharmaceutical patent applications; b) strengthening patentability criteria to prevent evergreening; and c) promoting high standards for

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Kerala HC ends suo moto proceedings against the grant of Attukal deity trademark – II

/ By / Trademark

[*Long Post]                                                                                                 Analysis of the judgment I shall analyse the judgment in this post. At the outset, I would like to state that I am a positivist. I believe in an impartial legal analysis of the given set of facts devoid of any moral argument whatsoever. For the following reasons, I argue that the extant legal framework impliedly prohibits the registration of marks such as the Instant Marks and the instant judgment is, therefore, legally incorrect. [For my

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Kerala HC ends suo moto proceedings against the grant of Attukal deity trademark – I

/ By / Trademark

I had earlier reported that the Kerala HC ended suo moto proceedings against the grant of Attukaldeity trademark and declined to grant any relief on merits. Broadly speaking, the HC held that the grant doesn’t violate Trade Marks Act, 1999 (“TM Act”) and Constitution of India. I intend to analyse the aforesaid judgment dated 12 September 2013 in these posts. In the first post, I shall present an abstract of the judgment. I shall analyse the judgment in the second

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Breaking News: Kerala HC ends suo moto proceedings against the grant of Attukal deity trademark

/ By / Trademark

We reported that the Attukal Bhagawathy Temple Trust (“Trust”) in Kerala had secured trademark protection for the picture of its deity (Trademark No. 1420800) and the title ‘Sabarimala of Women’ (Trademark No. 1420799) under Class 42 (for temple Services, social services, welfare services and cultural activities). The Division Bench of the Kerala High Court initiated suo moto case against the aforesaid registrations in early 2009 based on a petition faxed by Mr. Praveen Raj. The High Court later appointed Mr.

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Re-imposing curbs on royalty payments to foreigners

/ By / Uncategorized

Background We had earlier reported that the Indian government, in 2009, waived the requirement of prior government approval in case of payment of royalty by Indian companies to multinational corporations and allowed such payments through the automatic route. Later, we also carried a Business Standard report which stated that the aforesaid relaxation is being used by the MNCs to divert a major portion of the profits made by their Indian arms in the form of royalty payments and technology transfer

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