Du IP Café

In a very lucid judgment in the case of S.D. Containers vs. Mold-tek Packaging Limited (Civil Appeal No. 3695 of 2020), the Supreme Court of India decided the matter clearing the air of doubt on the interplay of the Design Act, 2000 and the Commercial Courts Act, 2015. Relevant facts on background of the case -  Mold-tek Packaging Limited (hereinafter Plaintiff/Respondent), a manufacturer and seller of plastic packaging material who obtained design registration for its container's lids, jars etc. in 2015 and 2017. In late 2019, the Plaintiff/Respondent came to know about S.D. Containers (hereinafter Defendant/Appellant) who allegedly infringed design of the Plaintiff/Respondent. The Plaintiff/Respondent filed a civil suit before the Commercial Court at Indore seeking permanent injunction against the Defendant/Appellant from copying and using the design of the Plaintiff/Respondent as described in Design Application No. 299039 and 299041 for the containers and lids, respectively. The

Though writing should be a regular affair when it comes to blogging but professional commitments intertwined with family responsibilities do not really leave much room to do so! What sparked this blog was the conundrum surrounding the Computer Related Inventions (CRIs) and their patentability in India in light of Section 3(k) of the Patents Act, 1970. In December 2019,  the Delhi High Court in Ferid Allani vs. Union of India (2019 SCC Online Del 11876) examined the rejection of a patent by the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) to a CRI and held that most inventions of the present era make use of computer programs and therefore, it would be discriminatory to reject a patent application to such inventions for merely making use of computer programs in its functioning. The Court further held that a patent application is to be evaluated with respect to its technical contribution. However, the Court did not elucidate a definition of what can be construed as an invention exhibiting

My first encounter with First Examination Reports (FER) issued by Indian Patent Office (IPO) happened during my internship in 2014 where i observed patent applications roughly took 4-5 years to get examined and another 1-2 years to get a grant post examination. Considering the limited period (20 years) for which patent rights are granted, prosecution time of 5-7 years was quite unusually high. Things improvised and became much swift after IPO appointed more patent examiners. Still the average time taken by a patent application to proceed towards grant was high. For the individual inventor-applicants, the problems faced were altogether on different level. They essentially lost interest in getting patent for their invention due to long duration of prosecution and costs involved thereof. Another measure to address the issue was taken and The Patent Rules were amended in 2016 to introduce the provision of expedited examination for an applicant who is either a start up or the applicant

For Doordarshan, Lockdown has certainly extended an unprecedented opportunity to revive the good old golden days and to increase TRP (Television Ratings Point) to great heights!  On public demand, Ramayana, Mahabharata and Shaktimaan serials are being telecast by Doordarshan. I have been watching the all time epic series "CID" these days and while watching one of the episodes discussed about patenting of a device which triggered a series of thoughts concerning IP rights into different aspects of movies, TV serials, music videos etc. However, what caught my attention was the creative and thoughtful titles of the episodes such "Pracheen Fingerprints"..What's in a name? Shakespeare had written. But here everything is in a name..from brand name, movie titles, book titles to name of a person! A movie title can be protected by way of registration with associations such as the Indian Motion Picture Producers' Association (IMPPA), the Association of Motion

Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma Gmbh vs. Tanmed Pharma India Pvt. Ltd . C.S.No.282 of 2019 and and A.No.3184 of 2019 in High Court of Judicature Madras The plaintiff and its Indian subsidiary filed this civil suit alleging infringement of its product patent “Linagliptin” by the defendant stating that the defendant violated granted patents bearing nos. 243301 and 227719 by launching, making, using, offering for sale, selling, importing and / or exporting the medicinal product, Linagliptin. The Defendant in its written statement stated that it did in fact obtained license to manufacture the drug “Linagliptin Tablet” from the department of Drug Control and in December 2017. However, it did not manufacture the said drug. On receipt of suit summons, defendant surrendered the license to the Drug Controller vide letter dated 27.05.2019 and stated that there remained no cause of action which could sustain the said suit.  An Advocated appointed as Commissioner inspected the pre