Du IP Café

In an interesting turn of events a couple of months before, Alphonso has been granted a Geographical Indication and in a much celebrated event later, the Certificate of Registration was granted to the Applicant(s) in Delhi in the hands of Hon'ble Commerce Minister.  I had blogged about the issue earlier here and here and here ..! Going by the facts there are three applicants who have sought to register Alphonso Mango as the Geographical Indication, namely- Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth (Appl. No. 139), Devgad Taluka Amba Utpadak Sahakari Sanstha Maryadit (Appl. No. 379), and Kelshi Parisar Amba Utpadak Sahakari Sanstha Maryadit (Appl. No. 497). Appl. No. 139 sought protection of Alphonso Mango on a wide GI area which includes few districts of Gujarat, Konkan region of Maharashtra, North Karnataka and State of Goa. Later the Application was amended and GI area was confined to the limits of Konkan region of Maharashtra. Appl. No. 379 sought protection of Devgad cultiv

The fresh morning run uphill in Pune reminded me KGP somehow and I went back in time... It was 2 a.m. when I first entered IIT KGP campus, it was raining cats and dogs and I didn't have any place to stay. One of the students helped me out and I survived. Since then it's been an endless pursuit of many things... In this pursuit, I never realized when I fell in love with this campus and the energy it has! When it comes to describing KGP and the feelings attached to it...words often fail me. Its been over 42 months since I graduated from IIT and all the memories of three years spent there are as fresh as an invigoratingly fresh air.. Whenever i visited campus, as any KGPian would do, I did rounds of 2.2 until it dawned. In February, 2017, i visited the campus again like a true patriot and history repeated itself with each cup of freshly brewed tea! With each round of 2.2, memories were flashing by..We were all singing songs at 2 a.m. in the night and there was no on

Branding your brand does not and must not mean that you copy somebody else's brand name and get a free ride upon their good will.  Trademark law is very clear in this aspect while keeping two most essential pre-requisites before registering a trademark as - 1. Trademark has to be distinctive; 2. Trademark must not be descriptive. Lot many brand owners make mistakes in understanding the concept of distinctiveness and start using brand names which are similar to the already existing trademarks which are famous. Making minor changes here and there either in spellings or color combinations or finding a rhyming words to the existing trademarks does not yield distinctiveness to your brand name. Some of the brand owners knowingly make use of such deceptively similar marks and then get sued.  In one of such interesting cases in Delhi High Court, the Court has ruled in favor of Starbucks who filed a case against a local coffee shop chain SardarBuksh for copying word mark a

In this post (which I wrote long back), I have summarized the landmark judgment delivered by the Supreme Court. Here it goes - The Novartis Patent Saga  The Zimmerman patent in 1993 - disclosed the imatinib free base – this patent was not granted in India because India did not provide for pharmaceutical patents prior to 1995; A publication in 1996, which referenced imatinib mesylate; The 1998 patent application (Application No.1602/MAS/1998) before the Indian Patent Office which claimed the beta-crystalline form of imatinib mesylate. What is claimed- beta crystalline form, better thermodynamic stability, lower hygroscopicity (comparison was made to alpha crystalline form) Application lay dormant – mailbox procedure – since patent law was in transition – appellant made an application for grant of EMR u/s 24A of the Act – EMR granted Nov. 10, 2003 Jan 1, 2005 – Application taken out of mailbox - attracted five pre-grant oppositions in terms of section 25(1) of the

Ever since the Copyright office has been shifted under the aegis of Ministry of Commerce & Industry, the entire registration procedure has been revitalized. Earlier, the Copyright registration took over two years which has been significantly brought down to less than two months and having personally seen the changes, it left me wondering why these reforms didn't take place earlier..? Anyway...now things are moving so fast that after Copyright Office has issued manual of practice and procedure on 27th April, 2018 following to the draft guidelines issued in February, 2018, accession to the WIPO Copyright Treaty, 1996 (WCT) and WIPO Performance and Phonogram Treaty, 1996 (WPPT) happened on 4th of July, 2018. The manuals have been published (after taking into consideration, the relevant suggestions from the stakeholders) in order to increase the transparency and reduce the delay in processing the Copyright application. The manual for different Copyright works can be a