International intellectual property law rests on a web of multilateral treaties and conventions that establish minimum standards of protection, define reciprocal obligations among member states and create the framework within which domestic copyright systems operate. At the centre of this web, for copyright, is the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works
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 »
The enforcement of a patent right is only as meaningful as the remedies available when that right is infringed. A patent that cannot be effectively enforced whose violation attracts only nominal consequences or whose vindication requires years of inconclusive litigation provides little real protection to the inventor and little genuine deterrence to would-be infringers. Conversely,
Remedies for Patent Infringement – Injunctions, Damages and Accounts of Profits Read More »
Supreme Court of India | Dr. D.Y. Chandrachud & B.V. Nagarathna JJ. | 27 September 2021 Civil Appeal Nos. 5985-5990 of 2021 Background Section 31D was inserted into the Copyright Act, 1957 by the Copyright Amendment Act, 2012 (brought into force on 21 June 2012). It creates a statutory licensing regime for broadcasting organisations that
Saregama India Limited vs. Next Radio Limited & Ors Read More »
Visual creativity occupies a distinctive place in the copyright landscape. A photograph taken in a fraction of a second, a painting developed over months, a sculpture carved from stone, an architectural elevation drafted with precision each of these represents an act of creative expression that the law recognises and protects, yet each raises questions about
Copyright in Photographs and Artistic Works in India Read More »
High Court of Delhi at New Delhi | Decided: 3 October 2008 IA No. 6872 of 2008 in CS(OS) No. 1073 of 2008 Presiding Judge: Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw Background Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries Limited, the plaintiff, held a registered trade mark THEOBID in relation to medicinal and pharmaceutical preparations. The trade mark was originally registered
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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 »
Patent infringement litigation in India, as in every major patent jurisdiction, is rarely a simple contest between an unimpeachable patent and an undeniable act of infringement. The defendant in a patent infringement suit has available to it a range of defences statutory, equitable and procedural that can defeat or substantially limit the plaintiff’s claim even
Defences to Patent Infringement – Section 107 and Beyond Read More »
High Court of Delhi at New Delhi | Decided: 30 March 2016 W.P.(C) No. 464/2014 & W.P.(C) No. 1006/2014 Bench: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Vibhu Bakhru Background Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (Publ), a company incorporated under the laws of Sweden and one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies, filed two writ petitions challenging orders passed by the
Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (Publ) v. Competition Commission of India & Another Read More »
A patent, at its core, is a bargain between the inventor and the state. The inventor discloses the invention to the public in full; the state, in return, grants a limited monopoly for twenty years. The value of that monopoly depends entirely on how effectively it can be enforced. An unenforceable patent right is no