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Social Media and IP (Part VIII): Select Patent Cases

Yahoo V. Facebook In 2012, Yahoo sued Facebook claiming infringement of ten of its patents relating to methods and systems of advertising on Social Media. The suit was filed after Facebook announced its plans to go for IPO. Yahoo did the same thing to Google and acquired substantial amount of shares in the bargain. In response, Facebook countersued Yahoo for infringement of its patents. The suit was settled within four months of its initial filing, in July, 2012. As a…

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The image depicts the logo of Google. This image is relevant as the post is about Google Street View. To read the post click here.

Trademark Infringement on E-Commerce platforms: Google AdWord case

Google is the world’s most famous search engine. Google's mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” The major portion of Google's profit is through its highly successful program AdWords, which provides advertisers advertising space for related searches. AdWords is a program that helps companies to advertise and promote their products or services on Google’s websites. The program works by providing highly relevant ads and suggestions to third party users when they enter keywords…

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Technological Protection Measures

  The Copyright Act, 1957 went through a major change in 2012. The amendment harmonised the copyright law with the “Internet Treaties”- the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT), making it capable of facing challenges posed by digital technologies. The Copyright Act, 2012 (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Act’) added new Sections, 65A and 65B, for protection against dodging of technological measures and protection of rights management information respectively. The provision under Section 65A sets out…

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Trademark Infringement on Ecommerce Platforms- Royal Enfield v. ebay.in

This post will discuss another trademark infringement case in the ecommerce market in India. Recently, in October this year, Eicher Motors Ltd, which manufactures and sells the Royal Enfield bike, filed an infringement suit against Saurabh Katar and Kuldeep Singh, for infringing their trademark ENFIELD, ROYAL ENFIELD and BULLET. The suit filed before the Delhi High Court, also claimed infringement of copyright of the logos and the website of Eicher Motors Ltd. Eicher alleged that Saurabh Katar and Kuldeep Singh were…

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The image is the logo of Amazon. The post is about the invalidity of single click patents. Click on image to view post.

Multi Time Machine, Inc. v. Amazon

One can always see a lot of advertisements, while performing a google search or just about any search on other search engines. Advertisements, and more recently, keyword advertising are a major source of revenue generation for search engines. The case that we are about to discuss, is something that nobody ever anticipated to happen. Multi Time Machine Inc, (MTM) manufactures watches, specifically special ops watches and high-end tactical watches. It sells them on its own website and through its various…

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Social Media and IP : Part VII – Trade Mark Cases

PINTEREST, v. PINTRIPS Pinterest, a social media platform, which allows users to upload content and share it through what it calls as 'pins,' filed a suit against Pintrips, a company that allows users to compare travel plans and flight prices. In its suit, Pinterest claimed that it owns trade mark rights with respect to the mark, PIN, and that its use by Pintrips amounts to trade mark infringement and dilution. The case was filed in 2013 in a California Court.…

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Indian Copyright Law and Fair dealing

The concept of fair dealing is statutorily entrenched in Section 52 of the Copyright Act, 1957. What fair dealing does is that it permits certain acts with respect to copyrighted works, which otherwise would have constituted as infringement. The concept of fair dealing found in the UK copyright law as well as the Indian copyright law, is much more restrictive that its US counterpart, fair use. While the Indian law provides a specific list of fair dealing acts and purposes,…

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Statutory Licensing for Broadcasting Organisations

  The objective of non–voluntary licensing is two-fold. First, to overcome the difficulty of locating the correct owner of the copyrighted work and getting an individual license from him and second is to avoid the creation of monopoly of copyright owners. The result the state looks at achieving from this provision is ensuring public dissemination and authors' compensation and avoiding market monopoly. The Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 has incorporated a new section into Chapter VI of the Copyright Act, which…

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Machinima – Copyright and Related Issues – Part I

In this post we shall be discussing about ‘machinima’, a form of new age cinema. For those of you who are not aware of what machinima is, it is derived from two words, ‘machine’ and ‘cinema’, and as the combination suggests, it refers to the practice of using video games to create original cinematographic films. Machinima films use the virtual environments and the characters within a game to tell stories. Though a machinima appears to be just like any other…

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Essential Clauses of a Digital License Agreement

  With the development and widespread use of internet and digital networks, we are now witnessing a revolution as to how copyrighted contents are acquired, displayed and disseminated. In the pre-internet days, there were limited options for distribution and exhibition of copyrighted contents. For example, the distribution of cinematographic films was limited to cinema halls and video cassettes. The internet revolution has opened several doors for content owners by creating new modes and formats of exploitation. Licensing out, creative contents like…

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