IPAB removes trade mark Nirma from Metal Products Category

/ By / Trademark

The detergent major Nirma was recently hauled up by the IPAB for its monopolistic attitude regarding the ownership of trademark Nirma. The dispute arose from Nirma Chemical Works’ registration of the mark Nirma in Class 6 which relates to metal goods. Interestingly, Nirma has registered the mark under all 42 classes. In this particular case, Nirmal Industrial Control sought to register the trade mark ‘Nirmal’, which was met with opposition from Nirma on grounds of deceptive similarity between the marks […]

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IKEA fights Copy Cats, Swat Kats Style

/ By / Trademark

As Economic Times reports, Swedish retail giant IKEA has sent a legal team to initiate trademark infringement cases against over two dozen businesses in India. As previously blogged about, Inter IKEA Systems B.V. is the owner and franchisor of the IKEA Concept and reportedly has 45 trademark registrations in India (for eg. – Application Nos. – 1523574, 1523584, 343317 etc.) IKEA, a global furniture and home products store, recently received regulatory clearance for entry into India. In order to protect

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IP Leadership Forum 2014

/ By / Event, Sponsored

SpicyIP is pleased to announce the IP Leadership Forum 2014, an international IP conference on the theme “IP Challenges in today’s Turbulent Environment”. The 3 day event will be held from January 7th to January 9th at Le Meridien, New Delhi. If the speaker-page is anything to go by, this is bound to be a terrific event and a great opportunity to meet and interact with several top IP professionals on recent developments in the IP world. WIPO’s PCT Seminar

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From Real to Reel: IP in Celluloid Part II

/ By / Others

We meet again with the second and concluding part of the post dealing with the list of movies having a substantial reference to IP/innovation in some way or another (For those who are yet to read the first part, see here). The debates about extending the term of copyright can be rekindled by the story that had been depicted in the movie About a Boy, a 2002 movie starring Hugh Grant and Toni Collette, where the protagonist is a playboy

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From Real to Reel: IP in Celluloid Part I

/ By / Others

Terry Pratchett had written once, “The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it’s as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.” A noble sentiment, indeed, which Steve Martin had sought to mirror in his inimitable style, “You know what your problem is, it’s that you haven’t seen enough movies – all

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Reckitt v. HUL- the tale of comparative advertising

/ By / Comparative Advertising, Trademark

In the last week of September, the High Court of Calcutta issued a judgment on the issue of comparative advertising in the dispute between  Reckitt Benkiser (India) Ltd. v. Hindustan Unilever Ltd.  This is the third matter between the two parties on the issue of comparative advertising. Our posts on the earlier two matters can be found here and here. The dispute was with respect to four advertisements published by both parties concerned. The first advertisement portrays Dettol Kitchen Gel

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SpicyIP Tidbit: J. A. Production permanently restrained from using ‘Hamara Bajaj’ by a consent order

/ By / Trademark

As blogged about earlier, John Abraham’s film production house J.A. Entertainment Pvt Ltd. is embroiled in a copyright and trademark infringement case for its upcoming movie titled ‘Hamara Bajaj’. Ostensibly, the movie derives its title from the story of the film which is centered around the life of one ‘Sanjay Bajaj’. But the same two words have been used consistently by Bajaj Auto Ltd. as a tag line for advertising ‘Bajaj Chetak’, one of the most popular Bajaj scooters (which is

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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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