Removal of AYUR from trademark registry

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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June 2012: Controller’s decisions at the IPO

June was yet another sizzling month at the Controller’s offices!  A highlight about this month is that out of the 140 decisions issued, 75 applications were granted. For 38 decisions, there was no file that was uploaded.  These decisions may be uploaded later on.  An interesting statistic that results from this month’s available decisions, is that approximately 75% of the cases were granted.  The decisions may be seen either at the patent office site individually, or here. APPLICATION  APPLICANT Decision/Issue CONTROLLER

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Exit ACTA, Enter TPP

Image from here “A secretive, multi-national trade agreement that threatens to impose restrictive intellectual property laws all over the globe”- sounds like ACTA, right? And ACTA effectively died a few days ago when the European parliament clearly rejected it, so there should be nothing to worry about.  Unfortunately, that quoted line is not about ACTA but rather describes the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). It’s however more expansive than ACTA and potentially far more destructive. Here’s a brief update about it: 

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ACTA Rejected: The Fight For Internet Freedom Tastes Success – India to follow?

Protests work. There’ no doubt in my mind any more. The tossing out of SOPA after a huge wave of protests could have been a fluke event. But with the European Parliament rejecting the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) as well, on the back of both online and offline protests, one begins to realise the influence of people’s participation in the deliberative process and its influence in putting a stop to overbearing intellectual property laws. And with India facing a similar

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First PIP Competition 2012 deadline extended till October 01, 2012

SpicyIP’s Pondering Intellectual Property (PIP) Essay Competition, 2012 SpicyIP is pleased to announce that the deadline for the First PIP (Promoting Intellectual Property) Competition, 2012 has been extended till October 01, 2012. (click on the image for an enlarged view) The essay competition is being organzied by the MHRD IP Chair at NUJS and Intellectual Property & Technology Law Society (IPTLS) in collaboration with SpicyIP. For sake of convenience the details of the competition as below: All students currently enrolled in

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IPAB revokes patents belonging to debutant Indian ‘patent trolls’

Image from here In two separate decisions last month, the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) has revoked three patents, one belonging to Ram Kumar and two belonging to Bharat Bhogilal Patel. Both patentees are classic ‘patent trolls’. I use the term ‘patent troll’ not in the sense of traditional ‘non-practicing entities’ but in the context of patentees who seek to exploit the weaknesses in the legal system to enforce equally weak patents. The IPAB orders can be accessed over here

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Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 notified by Government as law of the land

Image from here The Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 was officially notified, as coming into force as the law of the land, by the Central Government on 21 June, 2012. The Gazette notification is available on the website of the Copyright Office available over here. The Act received the assent of the President on 8 June, 2012 after both Houses of Parliament passed the law in the budget session of Parliament. However even after the President signs the law, it needs

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Yet another dodgy RTI reply from APEDA

Image from here. Continuing from my post, last month, on APEDA’s denial of my RTI request for the legal expenses incurred by APEDA in registering and defending ‘basmati’ as a trademark and a GI – I finally received a response to the appeal that I had filed, against the denial of information, with the appellate authority within APEDA.  The reply can be accessed over here. As always, the reply from APEDA was both evasive and dodgy and overturns only a

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Breaking news: DHC issues ex-parte injuctions in favor of Symed Labs

In yet another instance of issuance of ex-parte injunctions, the Delhi High Court (“DHC”) recently issued two such injunctions in Symed Laboratories Pvt. Ltd. favour.  We have consistently raised the issue that patents and ex-parte injunctions strike a rather discordant note.  Shamnad has written about it here; Prashant here and Shan here. Prashant had in his previous post discussed issuance of an ex-parte injunction against Symed Laboratories (“Symed”).  In the recent cases involving Symed, Justice Kailash Gambhir of the DHC issued not one – but two, ex-parte injunctions in Symed’s favor and

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Declaration of Internet Freedom!

The recent past has seen a spate of internet legislation across several different countries – sometimes attempted and foiled, sometimes successful – which have raised a number of issues which have unfortunately been discussed very minimally. I believe the SOPA and PIPA bills received the largest amount of publicity when several large websites and internet activists vigourously protested against it. More locally, the multiple website blocking Ashok Kumar (John Doe) orders garnered much attention as well, before it was clarified

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