Author name: Rahul Bajaj

Rahul Bajaj is a fourth year law student at the University of Nagpur. His interest in intellectual property law began taking a concrete shape when he pursued Professor William Fisher's online course on copyright law in the second year of law school. Since then, Rahul has worked on a diverse array of IP matters during his internships. He is particularly interested in studying the role of intellectual property law in facilitating access to education.

Supreme Court Stays Delhi High Court Judgment Striking Down Sec. 24(5) of Plant Varieties Act

/ By / Plant Variety Protection

Last December, I had covered a judgment delivered by a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court striking down Section 24(5) of the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act (PPVFRA). This provision empowers the registrar of plant varieties to issue interim directions to prevent abusive conduct by third parties during the period between the filing of an application for the registration of a plant variety and the making of a final decision as regards the grant of registration. […]

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In a Sign of Things to Come, Delhi High Court Passes Summary Judgment in Trademark Infringement Suit

/ By / Trademark

As we’ve noted on this blog before, one concrete manifestation of the Indian Government’s desire to promote the adjudication of commercial disputes by specialized tribunals was the enactment of the Commercial Courts Act (“the Act”) in 2015. Broadly speaking, the Act envisages the resolution of all commercial disputes – a term which includes within its ambit IP disputes – whose commercial value exceeds 1 crore rupees by separately constituted commercial courts or commercial divisions in high courts having original jurisdiction.

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In a Landmark Decision, U.S. Supreme Court Clarifies Scope of Patent Exhaustion Doctrine (2/2)

/ By / Patent

The first part of this post can be viewed here International exhaustion: The Court then delved into the question of whether the sale of a patented product abroad would also result in the exhaustion of the rights of a patentee over that product. In answering that question in the affirmative, the Court principally relied on its landmark judgment in the case of Kirtsaeng versus John Wiley and Sons which was covered on this blog here. In Kirtsaeng, the Court had

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In a Landmark Decision, US Supreme Court Clarifies Scope of Patent Exhaustion Doctrine (1/2)

/ By / Patent

In a landmark development earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a verdict that is likely to play a central role in shaping the theoretical understanding and practical application of the patent exhaustion doctrine by courts across the globe. Writing for a near-unanimous court (Justice Ginsburg disagreed with one prong of the court’s conclusion), Chief Justice Roberts ruled that: (1) a patentee is denuded of all its rights over a patented invention the moment the invention is sold in

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (April 30 – May 6)

/ By / Others

Our topical highlight of this week is Balaji’s 3-part analysis of the ‘policy schizophrenia’ that he argues plagues pharma price control. In his first post, Balaji sets the tone for his analysis by highlighting the sharp divergence between the government’s grand promises of controlling the prices of essential medicines and its actions on the ground. He then grapples with the conduct of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority in its role as the administering authority for the Drug Price Control Order,

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Arnab Goswami’s Republic TV Finds Itself in the Eye of Yet Another Legal Storm; Times Group Claims That Arnab Is Not Entitled to Use the Phrase ‘Nation Wants to Know’

/ By / Trademark

Regular readers of this blog may recall that we had blogged about the legal controversy surrounding the use of the word ‘Republic’ as the title of Arnab Goswami’s new show earlier this year. That controversy, which arose out of Subramanian Swamy’s assertion that the commercial use of the word ‘Republic’ is prohibited by the Emblems and Names Act can best be described as a ‘dog that did not bark’, inasmuch as Goswami decided to rename the show Republic TV to

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Novex Goes After Hotels and Casinos in Goa; Accuses Them of Playing Copyrighted Music Without Due Authorization

/ By / Copyright

In the realm of copyright law, one issue that has received significant attention on this blog is the manner of functioning of copyright societies and the modus operandi adopted by them to extract financial returns for the use of copyrighted works whose use they claim to be exclusively empowered to authorize. In India, the 3 main collecting Societies are Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS), Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) and Novex Communications (“Novex”) whose actions form the subject matter of this

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Bombay High Court Injuncts the Release of a Film Titled ‘Rubik’s Cube’; Holds That It Constitutes Passing Off

/ By / Trademark

Readers may recall that we had blogged about the Delhi High Court’s grant of an interim injunction to Seven Towns last year in a passing off action founded upon the use of the trade dress of the Rubik’s Cube puzzle by the defendant in that case. In an interesting turn of events, the Rubik’s Cube found itself embroiled in another legal controversy recently, resulting in the grant of an interim injunction against its use as the title of a feature

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (March 26-April 1)

/ By / Others

Our topical highlight of the week doubtless has to be a 2-part post by our fellowship applicant, Sreyoshi Guha, on the Intex versus AZ Tech judgment. In the first post, Sreyoshi begins by outlining the arguments of Intex and AZ Tech on the issue of relevance of goodwill in a case of passing off. She then discusses the court’s conclusion that the fundamental object of granting a remedy for passing off is to protect the plaintiff’s goodwill and that the

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Delhi High Court Rules on the Jurisdiction of the ASCI; Holds that It Can Adjudicate upon Claim of Infringement and Passing Off

/ By / Copyright

In a very interesting judgment delivered earlier this month, the Delhi High Court ruled on the jurisdiction of the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) to adjudicate upon complaints relating to copyright infringement in advertisements (for those interested, we have previously blogged about the ASCI’s powers and functions in a post which can be found here). Holding that the existence of provisions under the Copyright Act, 1957 and the Trademark Act, 1999 exclusively empowering the district court to adjudicate upon

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