Author name: Shwetasree Majumder

Delhi High Court ruling on Early Neutral Evaluation

On 6th August, 2007, Hon’ble Mr. Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul of High Court of Delhi passed an order which has taken the recent trend in the Delhi High Court of encouraging ADR in intellectual property disputes forward by leap and bounds. The order was passed in the case of Bawa Masala Company vs. Bawa Masala Company Pvt. Ltd. (OS No.139 of 2002). The matter had earlier been referred for mediation as there were a number of interlinked disputes pending before […]

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Super Basmati hits rough weather

Today’s Times of India reports (and correctly, for a change) that the Pakistani Government has allegedly sent a notice to the Indian Government objecting to the latter’s registration of Super Basmati for export. Finally the press seems to have understood that its a GI registration sought by India and not a patent, which is being objected to by Pakistan. The detailed news report is available here.

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"Kitney Aadmi The?" – The Sholay story (P.S. Don’t believe what the reporters tell you)

After Shamnad’s recent post on the RGV Nishabd case pertaining to copyright in film titles, it is but logical that I tell you the “Sholay” story. But before I begin, let me clarify at the outset that one of the most settled principles of Indian copyright jurisprudence is that there is “no copyright in film titles”. Yet our misinformed press labours on, doggedly exposing their ignorance to their hapless readers. Go ahead, I encourage you to read the story in

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Exponential damages in Walt Disney civil suit

Disney Enterprises, Inc. & Anr. v. Jitendra Aggarwal & Ors.;C. S. (OS) No. 175 of 2006 before the High Court of Delhi A rather unique order was passed on 13th July, 2007 by the High Court of Delhi in a case of counterfeiting of Walt Disney characters by a party who was reproducing them on labels which were then being affixed on baskets and sold in the market. At the first instance it may be pointed out that Disney Inc.

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谷歌贏爭端 – I meant "Google wins dispute"

What does Chen Zhaoyang have in common with gmail? Forget it, don’t rack your brains as the answer is “nothing”. He is a cybersquatter who registered the domain name gmail.co.in in 2005. Google filed a complaint with the National Internet Exchange of India under the INDRP (.in Dispute Resolution Policy) seeking a transfer of the domain name in their favour. Today’s Hindu Business Line reports that the sole arbitrator Mr. A K Singh who was appointed by NIXI has passed

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In the teeth of the issue

The Delhi High court has injuncted Ajanta India Ltd. from using a red and white packaging for its toothpowder cans on the ground that the same infringes the trademarks and copyrights of Colgate-Palmolive and directed the former to file an affidavit of compliance. Ajanta was initially marketing its toothpowder in a red can. Recently, they switched over to a can which allegedly echoed the trade dress of the Colgate Toothpowder packaging in red and white colour combination. Colgate immediately brought

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Ebay and Rowling (Part II) – Confounding the Conundrum!

As promised a few months ago, I bring you the final outcome of the eBay-Rowling controversy. In a detailed order running into 16 pages, the Delhi High Court has ruled on 31st May 2007 that …the responsibility and/or liability of the defendant No.5 who runs the said website (i.e. eBay) facilitating sale and purchase of goods and services by intending sellers and purchasers using its website, when such sale amounts to infringing the rights of others-like the present one where

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Postscript to A dash of yoga…

Turns out I was wrong and Michael Moore had best pan his camera on this side of the world… Today’s Times of India (Front Page) reads: India to protest grant of yoga patents by US30 May, 2007, Sidhartha/TIMES NEWS NETWORK NEW DELHI: The Indian government has decided to lodge its protest against yoga-related patents issued by the US Patents & Trademarks Office. While the health ministry has decided to take up the issue directly with USPTO, the commerce department is

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A dash of yoga and a whole lot of confusion

The recent spate of posts on the now-dormant-now-alive issue of Bikram Yoga and the copyright battle in the US, especially Shamnad’s piece on the Suketu Mehta op-ed brings a related though slightly tangential issue to mind. One that Shamnad once described as the “doctrinal confusion” issue – albeit in a different context. I’ve seen this repeatedly in the Indian media. A tendency to confuse copyrights and patents and use both interchangeably. And it often does not stop there. It extends

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A rose by any other name, speaks the same???!!!!

A short synopsis of an interesting decision on patent law by a court in Bombay: Speaking Roses International Inc. v. Controller-General of Patents & Anr.(Misc. Petition No. 13/2006) Decision date: 12th February 2007 • Petitioners applied for a patent on 19.09.2002 for the method of providing an image on an organic product (flowers) however, the Respondent rejected the application by an order dated 19.04.2006.• The petition came up on board normally but the Respondents failed to appear despite service and

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