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 »
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
Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries Limited v. Cipla Limited 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 »
High Court of Delhi at New Delhi (Division Bench) | Decided: 9 November 2012 | RFA (OS) No. 90 of 2010 Bench: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Pradeep Nandrajog & Hon’ble Mr. Justice Manmohan Singh Background The Himalaya Drug Company, the appellant, is the owner of the trade mark Liv.52, registered under registration number 180564 in Class
Supreme Court of India | Decided: 26 July 2018 Civil Appeal Nos. 2937–2942 & 2943–2944 of 2018 Bench: Hon’ble Mr. Justice A.K. Sikri & Hon’ble Mr. Justice Ashok Bhushan Citation: AIR 2018 SC 3516 | (2018) 9 SCC 183 Background Karnataka Co-operative Milk Producers Federation Limited, the respondent, is a cooperative federation of milk producers
Nandhini Deluxe v. Karnataka Co-operative Milk Producers Federation Ltd. Read More »
Delhi High Court | Gita Mittal J. | 25 May 2007 | Citation: 142 (2007) DLT 724 | 2007 (35) PTC 95 (Del) | MIPR 2007 (2) 269 BACKGROUND The plaintiffs, Cadbury India Limited and its associated entity, are engaged in the manufacture and sale of confectionery and chocolate products in India, forming part of
Cadbury India Limited & Ors. v. Neeraj Food Products 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 »
Delhi High Court | J.D. Kapoor J. | 29 October 2003 108 (2003) DLT 51 | 2003(27)PTC478(Del) Background Colgate Palmolive Company (Plaintiff No. 1), a US-incorporated multinational and its Indian subsidiary/licensee Colgate Palmolive (India) Ltd. (Plaintiff No. 2) had been manufacturing and selling tooth powder in India since 1951 in distinctively shaped cans bearing a
Colgate Palmolive Company & Anr. vs. Anchor Health and Beauty Care Pvt. Ltd. Read More »