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.

‘A lawyer appearing before IPAB should wear the cap of an IP Practitioner’

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Justice Prabha Sridevan, Chairperson of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (“IPAB”), was interviewed by ‘Managing Intellectual Property’ [available here]. She made quite a few pertinent remarks on the functioning of IPAB, role of litigants in the system, her post-retirement plans etc. She rightly observed in the interview that the tribunal has started drawing greater international attention.  She exhorted the lawyers to approach IPAB in a different manner viz., by putting the cap of an IP practitioner and not by wearing […]

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Removal of AYUR from trademark registry

/ By / Trademark

The Intellectual Property Appellate Board (“IPAB”) affirmed the removal of the mark “AYUR” while deciding on an appeal against the impugned Order of the Registry granting registration for the trade mark “AYURTHEERAM” in favour of respondent (M/s. Alex Resorts and Hotels Pvt. Ltd)  for the services “Ayurveda Hospital and Resorts” (included in class 42) subject to confining the services in the States of Kerala and Karnataka. [The Order is available here.] The respondent claimed before the Registry to be the

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Removal of ‘Manjal’ from Registry – Update

/ By / Trademark

Business Line reportedthe restoration of status quo by the Madras High Court in the dispute regarding the removal of ‘Manjal’ from the trademarks register. As per the report, the Madras High Court passed an (interim) order staying the impugned order dated January 21, 2011 passed by the Deputy Registrar and issued notice to the Deputy Registrar and Divine Pharmaceuticals. As I could gather, the Court granted the interim stay while the matter came up for admission. I had earlier covered

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Note on Delhi HC judgment in Lt Foods Ltd v. Sunstar Overseas Ltd &Anr.

/ By / Trademark

The Delhi HC, in Lt Foods Ltd v. Sunstar Overseas Ltd &Anr., decided on a bunch of interim applications filed by the parties in the cross-suits, seeking injunction against each other. The parties, in the instant case, claimed ownership rights over the mark “HERITAGE” used in respect of rice. While plaintiff claimed to be the user of the mark since 1997, the defendant claimed to be the user from 1985.The parties did not dispute that the marks used by them

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An Introduction to the recent Frontline issue on Indian Patent Law

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Frontline, in a series of articles its recent issue, discussed the recent developments in Indian Patent Law and its reverberations in the pharmaceutical industry and public health [ ‘Patent to plunder’ by Amit Sengupta, ‘A big step forward’ by C.P. Chandrasekhar, ‘Patents and the law’ by V. Venkatesan, ‘A welcome first’ by T.K. Rajalakshmi, ‘Western warnings’ by R. Ramachandran, ‘Question of efficacy’ by Leena Menghaney, ‘The current patent system is deeply flawed’, interview with Prof. Shamnad Basheer and ‘Drug and

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CIC on RTI Act and Copyright

/ By / Copyright

The Central Information Commission, in Ms.SakshiMathur v. Ministry of Health and Family, decided on the issue of disclosure of certified copy of question booklet of AIIMS-MBBS Entrance Examination, 2011 and the corresponding answer key. The Public Information Commissioner of AIIMS had initially refused the disclosure inter alia on the ground that the questions and answers were the intellectual property of AIIMS and exempted from disclosure under the Right to Information Act (“RTI Act”). SaiVinod had earlier blogged on IIM’s Copyright

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Delhi HC on Customs Order restricting the clearance of consignments

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The Delhi High Court, in its recent judgment in Kingtech Electronics (India) Pvt. Ltd v. Union of India and Ors, once again stayed the Order of the Commissioner of Customs restricting the clearance of consignments which, as per the latter’s determination allegedly violated the patent rights of Ericsson (Respondent No. 4). In coming to this conclusion, the Delhi High Court relied on the earlier flawed judgment by Justice Manmohan Singh in the LG case which was analysed here. The petitioner,

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Website Blocking and John Doe orders: Barking up the wrong tree? (Part II)

/ By / Copyright

by Kartik Khanna. Part I is available here. I had discussed in Part I of this post that Reliance Communication’s [‘RCOM’] initiative in blocking websites on the basis of the John Doe order has no legal basis in IP Law. RCOM has relied on Section 79 of the Information Technology Act [‘IT Act’] to claim that they are bound by the order. I will discuss the relevant provisions to see the veracity of this statement. IT Act Section 79 provides

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Website blocking and John Doe orders: Barking up the wrong tree? (Part I)

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by Kartik Khanna Kartik Khanna is a fourth year student of NUJS, Kolkata. He blogged very recently here. Bollywood has seen a growing number of John Doe orders over the past year. Spicy IP covered this trend here and here. While the previous posts discussed the advent of the tool in India, I will touch upon a substantial case of misuse of the same. Facts The Times of India, in a report dated December 24, 2011 (available here) states that

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Bikram Yoga and Copyright: A lot of ‘Hot’ Air?

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  Guest Post by Kartik Khanna Kartik Khanna is a fourth year student of NUJS, Kolkata. He wrote for us in the past as well. [See here] Facts   While India has been embroiled in patenting issues concerning yoga positions [here], a different storm is brewing in the United States. Continuing a long running saga, Bikram Choudhary, the founder of Bikram Yoga has filed a copyright infringement suit against Greg Gumucio, who is offering similar services through his brand, ‘Yoga

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