Bombay HC on passing off & shape of Vodka bottle

/ By / Trademark

The Bombay High Court recently delivered an interesting judgment pertaining to passing off / trademark law. The dispute was over the shape adopted by the defendant for its Vodka bottle. Gorbatschow Wodka Kg v. John Distilleries Limited Facts The plaintiff which owned one of the top fifteen premium Vodka brands in the world – “Gorbatschow Wodka”, marketed it in a bottle which was quite distinctive in shape. The shape was registered in various jurisdictions. In India, claiming use since December, […]

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SpicyIP Open Government Project: Draft TK Rules 2009

/ By / Uncategorized

Around 31 years ago somewhere across the T.V. airwaves, Minister for Administrative Affairs Mr. James George Hacker had tried to implement an ‘Open Government’ project which was unfortunately sabotaged by Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby. However in the words of he who I cannot remember, “you can never kill an idea”. Image from here. Anyway getting down to the point of it all, we hope to kick off our own ‘Open Government’ project. The very simple, unambitious objective of our

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Condolence: Demise of the longest serving Controller

/ By / Uncategorized

This comes very late in the day, but is a condolence message that had to be written. Last year, we lost one of India’s leading IP figures, Shri Rajendra A Acharya, who passed away at his residence in Pune on the 18th of July 2010. Acharya-ji has the distinction of serving as India’s Controller General of Patents for a good 12 years (a term that traversed the ’80’s and the early 90’s). My guess is that this makes him the

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Copyright Licenses in the Cloud

/ By / Copyright

In this post, I will focus on the licensing issues in the new cloud based services provided by Google and Amazon. As always, I write with the hope that the Indian labels will eventually recognise the onset of the digital age in music and by understanding the issues as and when they come up internationally, they will be in a better position to provide a seamless service to its users when they finally decide to set up such services in

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IJLT-CIS Lecture series to be streamed live tomorrow

/ By / Uncategorized

The Indian Journal of Law and Technology and the Centre for Internet and Society present the lecture series on “Emerging Issues in Privacy: Law, Policy and Practice” on 21st and 22nd May, 2011. The lectures will be covering the following themes: 1. UID Project and Challenges to Privacy2. Privacy, Cloud Computing & Social Networking3. The State and Privacy: E-Surveillance et. al. The following speakers have currently confirmed their presence at the event 1. Dr. Usha Ramanathan2. Dr. Sudhir Krishnaswamy3. Ms.

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Delhi High Court rains on Champagne’s Parade

/ By / Trademark

(Image taken from here)Yesterday, the Delhi High Court had come up with a judgment vindicating IPAB’s stance regarding a matter of trademark opposition. The matter, titled Champagne Moet And Chandon v. Union Of India & Ors. [W.P. (C) 9778 of 2006], involves a trademark relating to champagne, which ought to prove especially interesting to the readers who also double as wine connoisseurs. Facts: The Petitioner (Champagne Moet) had challenged a trademark application filed by the Respondent (M/s Moets) regarding a

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DIPP releases discussion paper on Utility models

/ By / Uncategorized

Shamnad had discussed the use of utility model (UMs) applications in a previous post here.  The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) recently posted a discussion paper on the possibility of granting patents for UMs on its website, available here.   The DIPP seeks specific views and suggestions on Section X of the paper entitled ‘Issues for Resolution’ and any related issues.  The objective is to develop a suitable framework for protecting utility models, in the event it is felt

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Sholay scores interim victory in landmark ‘ringtones’ litigation

/ By / Copyright

The Delhi High Court has recently passed interim orders in the copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Sholay Media & Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. against Vodafone over the sale of ringtones of songs and dialogues from the super-duper 70s Bollywood blockbuster Sholay. We had blogged about the dispute earlier over here. The judgment of the Delhi High Court is available over here. The Plaintiffs were represented by Mr. Jagdish Sagar, Partner at Anand and Anand who briefed Senior Advocate Sudhir Chandra Agarwal.

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World Copyright Summit in Brussels on 7th & 8th June, 2011 – Javed Akhtar to be the keynote speaker

/ By / Event

The World Copyright Summit will be held in Brussels on 7th & 8th June, 2011. It is organised by International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC). After two successful editions in Brussels (2007) and Washington, DC (2009), over 600 participants will attend the third edition of the Summit. World famous creators, rights organisations, music and books publishers, TV and film producers, policy makers, media and content providers, ISPs and telecom operators, hardware manufacturers, legal and technology experts and

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Determination of prima facie validity of registered mark

/ By / Trademark

The Delhi High Court once again examined the prima facie validity of a registered mark in its judgment in Bhole Baba Milk Food Industries Ltd v. Parul Food Specialities (P) Ltd. The Court had to decide plaintiff’s application for interlocutory injunction qua use of word “Krishna” (which is part of its registered mark) in the label mark “Parul’s Lord Krishna” of the defendant. A similar examination of registered mark was earlier carried out in Marico Ltd v. Agro Tech Foods

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