The mark of the plaintiff and the defendant prima facie appear to be similar both visually as also phonetically, with ‘MONSOON HARVEST’ being the dominant part thereof. Mere addition of the word ‘WINGREENS’ or the logo in the defendant’s mark is not sufficient to distinguish the same on application of the test of an unwary…

The Delhi High Court, in a recent order, while dealing with an appeal by OPENTV INC for refusal of its patent (by the Indian Patent Office), highlighted the need to re-visit the blanket exclusions set out in section 3(k) in relation to “business methods.” The Court observed that “a large number of inventions in emerging…

Under the law of trademarks, the threshold for extending exclusive rights to the shape of a product is quite high. The shape by itself should immediately be identifiable with the source of the product. For trademark registration of the shape of a product, the same can only be granted if it has acquired a secondary…

‘Phonepe’ and ‘Postpe’ are the marks involved in the latest round of litigation between PhonePe Private Limited (PPL) and Resilient Innovations Private Limited (Resilient) at the Bombay High Court. The parties have had several rounds of litigation in the past before various Courts. In this round, PPL has sought an injunction against Resilient from using…

In this case, the question before the Court was whether the goodwill and reputation, though garnered abroad, is so considerable that it has spilled over to India to confuse or deceive a customer of average intelligence and imperfect recollection. Bolt Technology Ou (‘Bolt’) filed the suit against Ujoy Technology Private Limited and Ors (Ujoy), alleging…

Does the combination of the words ‘SCHEZWAN’ and ‘CHUTNEY’ makes it arbitrary and justifies the claim for exclusive use?  This is the crux of the issue in the instant dispute before the Delhi High Court. The Plaintiff Capital Food Pvt. Ltd (Capital Food) has filed the suit against the Defendant, Radiant Indus Chem Pvt. Ltd,…

Whether the rights of a registered proprietor in a mark planned for future utilization can be nullified by someone who deploys a similar mark after the filing date of the first mark and before the date of actual use by the registered proprietor. The issue has been debated earlier and has come up in this…

A total of 22,699 design applications were submitted, an increase of 59.38% from the previous year The number of applications that originated from India during 2021-22 was 18,851, and the foreign applications were 3848. Thus, number of applications originating from India was about 83% of total filing. The top 7 Indian applicants were 1) Chitkara…

The annual report released by the Controller General of Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks (CGPDTM) for 2021-2022 shows interesting developments and insights into the working of the Copyright Office. Filing of copyright applications increased by 26.74%, while copyright registration increased by 26.06% compared to 2020-2021. Online application filing reached 94% of the total applications. Green…

The Intellectual Property Office has recently issued its annual report for the year 2021-2022. Our post covers some key aspects. The report mentions that fee concessions and provisions for the expedited examination have been given to specific categories of applicants, including Startups, MSMEs, and female applicants, to encourage IP filing in the sectors of critical…