In-depth analytical articles on Indian IP law including prosecution,enforcement, statutory interpretation and case developments
Every copyright must, at the moment it comes into existence, vest in someone. The question of who that person is who holds the copyright from the instant the work is created, before any assignment, any licensing arrangement or any commercial transaction has taken place is the question of first ownership. It is a question of
First Ownership of Copyright in India – Section 17 and Its Exceptions Read More »
A registration certificate looks like the end of an argument. It is issued by the Registrar, it is entered on a public register, and it carries the statutory presumptions of validity. Yet Indian trademark law has never treated registration as the last word on who owns a mark. The Trade Marks Act, 1999 sits alongside
Copyright is infringed by copying, and copying is rarely admitted. A plaintiff who finds that a film, a serial, a song or a book resembles his own work must prove, without the benefit of a confession, that the resemblance is the product of borrowing and that what was borrowed is something the law protects. The
Substantial Similarity in Indian Copyright Law: The Test for Determining Infringement Read More »
A hearing before the Controller of Patents is the point at which an Indian patent application is actually decided. The examination report, the applicant’s reply and the exchange of correspondence all lead to it, and in the great majority of contested applications the refusal or grant that follows is the only order on the merits
A trademark registration in India is a conditional grant. The Trade Marks Act, 1999 confers a monopoly in the mark so long as the mark does the work for which the monopoly exists, namely to indicate the commercial origin of goods or services in the market. A proprietor who obtains registration and then leaves the
Non-Use of Trademarks in India: Section 47, Genuine Use and Cancellation Proceedings Read More »
Every copyright dispute in India eventually returns to a single question: what exactly did the plaintiff own, and what did the defendant take? The answer almost never lies in the whole work. It lies in the line the law draws between an idea, which anyone may use, and the particular way an author has expressed
Idea-Expression Dichotomy in Indian Copyright Law: What Is Protected and What Is Not? Read More »
Publication is the moment at which an Indian patent application stops being a private communication between an applicant and the Patent Office and becomes a public document. From that date the invention is part of the prior art against the world, the applicant acquires statutory privileges that stop short of a right to sue and
The publication of the Guidelines for the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Patent Examination Procedures by the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks on 7 August 2026 marks the first occasion on which the Indian Patent Office has formally acknowledged and attempted to govern, a practice that had already been
Copyright in architectural works occupies a distinctive and doctrinally unusual position within Indian intellectual property law a position shaped as much by the physical permanence of buildings and their entanglement with property rights, urban development and public function, as by the ordinary principles of authorial protection that govern paintings, sculptures and literary works. A building
Copyright in Architectural works under Indian law Read More »
The Madrid Protocol represents the single most significant reform to India’s international trademark posture since the enactment of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 itself. For an Indian applicant seeking to protect a brand across multiple jurisdictions, the pre-Madrid alternative was a country-by-country filing exercise involving separate national applications, separate local agents, separate fee structures and
The Madrid protocol – International trademark registration for Indian application Read More »