Multiplexes to Show Anti-Piracy Clips. Oops! They’re Doing It Again.

/ By / Copyright

In a landmark move set to highlight India’s strong anti-piracy stance, the Ministry for Information & Broadcasting has issued directions to all multiplex owners that an anti-piracy clip is to be shown to audiences each time before the movie is shown.  Involvement of FICCI  The move came from a request made by FICCI after extensive discussions were held in a conference organized by it in Mumbai on 17th October and the issue was raised by Yash Raj Chopra. FICCI will […]

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The selection process for appointment of Technical Member (Patents), IPAB

/ By / Uncategorized

The DIPP recently replied to my RTI application asking for information pertaining to the appointment of Mr. D.P.S. Parmar as the Technical Member (Patents) IPAB. The Technical Member is supposed to sit along with a Judicial Member to adjudicate patent revocations and also appeals against the Controller. The previous person to hold this post was Mr. Chandrashekaran, who was earlier the Controller General of Patents.  We can now confirm the following 8 persons applied for the post: (i) Mr. D.P.S.

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Are missing files a problem at the Indian Patent Office?

/ By / Uncategorized

While it is now established beyond doubt that missing files are a massive problem at the Trade Marks Registry, I would like to know from patent lawyers whether they are facing a similar problem at the patents office. So far I know of only one case which ended up in court over a missing pre-grant opposition file. That case had been filed by Polymedicure Ltd. and did not involve its own files but instead the files of a patent which

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Guest Post: A TM Lawyer expresses his ‘kolaveri’ against the Trademark Office

/ By / Trademark

I’m sure that by now most of our readers have heard of the absurd yet super-popular ‘kolaveri’ song which went viral across the country in a matter of a few weeks. The operational word ‘kolaveri’, a Tamil word, is supposed to mean ‘murderous rage’. For the last few weeks we’ve been receiving some ‘kolaveri’ from practitioners upset, in particular, with my style of writing. It is therefore a pleasure to receive the following piece from a practitioner, expressing his ‘kolaveri’

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Delhi HC winks at the IPR (Import) Rules, 2007 in the L.G. Electronics case

/ By / Uncategorized

Mathews last week had carried this post, summarizing an ex-parte order by Justice Manmohan Singh in the case of L.G. Electronics Pvt. Ltd. v. BharatBhogilal Patel & Othrs. Image from here. In this post I would like to critically analyse the order and its implications for future cases. Before proceeding any further, I would like to briefly point our readers to the Ramkumar case, where Customs Authorities had seized consignments of imported mobile phones which were allegedly infringing Ramkumar’s patents.

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Missed deadlines, docketing errors and unintentional vs. unavoidable errors

/ By / Patent

The Delhi patent office recently issued two well reasoned decisions relating to PCT applications that were filed after the 31 month deadlines.  Both decisions were issued by Dr. K.S. Kardam and in both decisions, the Controller held that because the applicant had missed the deadlines, did not provide sufficient cause for extension of time, information of the applications had become part of the public domain; and both applications were therefore, deemed to be withdrawn.  Interestingly, both cases were handled by

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Microsoft Continues its IP Enforcement Drive, Wins Damages

/ By / Uncategorized

We have yet another case of Microsoft seeking and receiving punitive damages for pirated software being used by a small hardware manufacturer in the course of sale of its products. The decision can be viewed here.  The Present Case   In this case, Microsoft alleged that the defendants, a business entity engaged in marketing and selling computer hardware, including assembled desktops and other peripherals. It appears that the vendors were in the habit of pre-installing unauthorised and unlicensed copies of

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Debating the legality and the efficacy of the CSIR-Patent Office agreement to out-source prior art searches

/ By / Uncategorized

Earlier this year, the Patent Office entered into an outsourcing agreement with the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) wherein a specialized division of the latter would conduct prior art searches for pending patent applications and prepare search reports which would be used by patent office examiners to decide the patentability of an invention. The ostensible reason behind this move was to help clear the massive backlog of patent applications at the patent office. This story was initially reported

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SpicyIP Announcements: National Seminar on Critical Issues in International Commercial Arbitration 2012

/ By / Event

SpicyIP is pleased to announce that the National Law Institute University, Bhopal, in association with the University Grants Commission is organising a seminar titled “National Seminar on Critical Issues in International Commercial Arbitration 2012” on 3rd and 4th March, 2012. In their endeavor to encourage scholarship in the area of Corporate Law among law students, CBCL is specifically looking forward to receiving scholarly articles on the subject of Critical Issues in International Commercial Arbitration authored by students, faculties and academicians

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‘Internet’ Domain Name Dispute. Quite Literally.

/ By / Trademark

We’ve covered domain name disputes before, but nothing quite like the case (which can be accessed here) that recently came up before the Delhi High Court, the judgement for which was delivered on 14th December by Justice Murlidhar. On one side, we have the petitioner trying to defend his registration of the domain name http://www.internet.in and on the other, we have a registered trademark proprietor trying to challenge the registration on the ground that he is the owner of the

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