In-depth analytical articles on Indian Trademark law including prosecution,enforcement, statutory interpretation and case developments.
Comparative advertising the practice by which a trader promotes their own goods or services by making explicit or implicit reference to the goods or services of an identifiable competitor occupies a uniquely contested position at the intersection of trademark law, consumer protection and commercial free speech. It is a practice that serves genuine consumer interests […]
The emergence of the internet as the dominant medium of global commerce has generated a body of legal problems that the architects of modern intellectual property law could not have anticipated. Among the most significant and most commercially damaging of these problems is the phenomenon of cybersquatting the opportunistic registration of internet domain names that
Domain Names as Trademarks – Cybersquatting and UDRP in India Read More »
Trademark law, in its traditional formulation, is concerned primarily with consumer confusion the risk that the use of a similar mark will mislead consumers about the commercial origin of goods or services. The likelihood of confusion standard, which pervades the examination of relative grounds under Section 11, the infringement enquiry under Section 29 and the
Trademark Dilution in India – Blurring and Tarnishment Read More »
No concept in Indian trademark law is more frequently litigated, more extensively analyzed in judicial decisions or more consequential in its practical application than deceptive similarity. It is the standard by which the Trade Marks Registry determines whether a pending application conflicts with an earlier registration, the criterion by which courts assess whether an allegedly
Deceptive Similarity The Legal Test Under Indian Trademark Law Read More »
Among the most commercially significant and doctrinally complex questions in contemporary Indian trademark law is the extent to which the visual and physical appearance of a product or its packaging its trade dress can be protected as a trademark. In a marketplace saturated with competing products, the overall commercial appearance of goods has become one
Trade Dress and Product Shape as Trademark in India Read More »
The history of trademark law is, in significant part, a history of expanding frontiers. What began as a system designed to protect word marks and simple devices the merchant’s mark stamped on goods to identify their origin has evolved over centuries into a framework broad enough, in principle, to accommodate almost any sign capable of
Colour Marks, Sound Marks and Non-Traditional Trademarks in India Read More »
Of all the categories of marks that traverse the trademark registration process in India, descriptive marks present the most nuanced and intellectually demanding set of questions. They occupy the contested middle ground of the distinctiveness spectrum neither inherently protectable like fanciful or arbitrary marks, nor wholly beyond protection like generic terms and their treatment reveals,
Descriptive Marks and the Acquired Distinctiveness Doctrine in Indian Trademark Law Read More »
Distinctiveness is the soul of a trademark. It is the quality that separates a protectable brand identifier from an ordinary word, symbol or device that belongs to the common stock of language and commerce. Without distinctiveness, a mark cannot perform the essential trademark function the identification of the commercial origin of goods or services and
The Concept of Distinctiveness in Indian Trademark Law Read More »
A trademark, once registered, is a species of personal property. Like other forms of intellectual property, it is capable of being owned, transferred, mortgaged, licensed and dealt with in all the ways that the law permits in respect of movable property. The transfer of ownership of a trademark wholly or partially, with or without the
Trademark Assignment – Requirements and Procedure under the Trade Marks Act, 1999 Read More »
A trademark is not merely a badge of origin it is a commercial asset of potentially enormous value, capable of generating revenue far beyond the direct sale of the goods or services to which it is attached. The mechanisms through which that value is extracted and shared between the proprietor of the mark and third
Trademark Licensing and Registered User Agreements under the Trade Marks Act, 1999 Read More »