"Manual of Geographical Indications Practice and Procedure" released

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The Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks & Registrar of Geographical Indications has relased the “Manual of Geographical Indications Practice and Procedue”. The Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 and the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Rules, 2002 came into force on 15th September, 2003. The Manual succinctly traces the evolution of GI, explores the concept of GI and context of  enactment of Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration & Protection) Act, […]

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Performing Wrongs

/ By / Copyright

As promised, we bring you a wonderfully incisive post from regular guest blogger, Nikhil Krishnamurthy who, in his inimitable style, exposes the jurisprudential fallacy underlying recent copyright decisions that have been blogged about here and here. More importantly, we have his take on the 1977 SC case and why it is fundamentally flawed. In short, a must read for anyone interested in the nuances of music copyright law in India. In the light of the judgments of the Bombay High

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Lost in Relocation? No More: Long Arm of Trade Mark Registry hunts down Missing Applications

/ By / Trademark

(Image taken from here) Some of the readers may already be aware of the negative publicity that the Trade Marks Registry had got back in April, 2011, when it had been discovered that a number of registered trade mark files had gone missing from the archives of the Registry Offices at Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Ahmedabad. The matter had been revealed in a proceeding before Justice Murlidhar of the Delhi High Court, when the Department of Industrial Policy and

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Does size matter: the case of an anti-narcoleptic drug, modafinil?

/ By / Patent

Long post follows:  About a month ago, the UK Chancery division patents courts (England and Wales) rendered an opinion (Justice Floyd) regarding claim construction in defining size of particles of an anti-narcoleptic drug, modafinil, in pharmaceutical compositions.  The patent court construed patent claims to determine whether there is an infringement, if any.  Facts:  The dispute involves three patents related to the drug modafinil, used to treat sleep disorders such as narcolepsy.  Orchid Europe is the manufacturer of generic modafinil and

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Silencing the Song

/ By / Copyright

A series of decisions emasculating the rights of some of our finest creators (music composers and lyricists) have confounded many of us. First it was the Kerala High Court. Then the Mumbai High Court. And the latest in this blunderful series is a Delhi high court decision that falls prey to the same jurisprudential folly that assumes that when a song is broadcast, there is no violation of the underlying rights of music composers and lyricists. We’ve requested our popular

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Whither the Song of Justice?

/ By / Copyright

It all began with a 1977 Supreme Court decision, where a judge, for reasons best known to him, interpreted the law relating to Bollywood music in a manner that effectively emasculated the rights of music composers and lyricists. His brother judge, known otherwise for standing up for the under-dog in language often reminiscent of “poetic” justice, remained largely silent (by his “verbose” standards). Fast forward a couple of decades and we have two collecting societies (IPRS and PPL) that enter

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Injunction Order against Cleartrip for Data Theft Refused by Bombay High Court

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Quick recap: To quickly recapitulate the facts surrounding this order, one might remember the FIR that was filed against Cleartrip by Travelocity in late 2009. Travelocity is a foreign company that acquired Travelguru, who in turn had acquired Desiya (another online travel agency web portal) in 2007 for data theft.  Essentially, the charge was that Desiya employees, including former CEO of Desiya, Amit Taneja, had criminally conspired to hand over data belonging to its company to Cleartrip. This resulted in

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From Cola Wars to Whisky Wars: If anything has been ‘Made Large’, they are Commercial Disparagement and Copyright violations

/ By / Copyright, Trademark

Guest Post by Prateek Bhandari Prateek Bhandari is a fourth year student of NUJS, Kolkata. He is the Co-founder & Manager (Website Development & Finance) of Lawctopus. In the light of various judgments on commercial disparagement, he analyses the possible violations committed by McDowell’s advertisement which was, however, later withdrawn.   versus                                                          If you thought the cola wars are losing the fizz, check out what could have snowballed into a high ‘spirited’ new edition- Whisky Wars! UB Spirits launched

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It may be none of my business: but does that make it any of yours?

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(Image taken from here)Those familiar with the Indian Patent Act, 1970 are doubtless aware of the ubiquitous and controversial provision of S. 3(k) that excludes from the realms of patentability any business method. While A. 27 of TRIPS advocates patentability in all “fields of technology”, nonetheless, India as a developing country can also avail itself of the alternate paths laid out in Articles 70.8 and 70.9, which it has done by such exclusion as per S. 3(k). A business method

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Fighting Piracy with Oppression?

/ By / Copyright

Screenshot taken from TorrentFreak A frantic call from a friend last night informed me of a rather strange message on their screen. “This site has been blocked as per instructions from Department of Telecom (DoT)”. The site my friend was trying to access was Megaupload.com – an online storage site. A quick google inquiry brought up similar concerns being voiced by other internet users on internet forums. I, myself, however, was able to access the site with no problems. From

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