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Alt. Text: This image depicts the Skype Trademark. This image was used because this post relates to a case involving Skype. Click on the image to read full post.

Phonetic Justice for Trademark

  This article was contributed by Swastika Chakravarti. How important are phonetics in trademarks, you ask? The General Court of the European Union has an answer for you. In deciding a matter between Pay TV giant, Sky and Microsoft (owners of Skype), the Court relied on the similarity of signs in terms of concept and phonetics to deny Microsoft a trademark for Skype in Europe. Holding that the pronunciation of ‘y’ in Skype is no shorter than in Sky, the Court…
May 8, 2015 Intellectual Property, Trademarks 0Comment 1140Views 1Like
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This image depicts the registered trademark logo. It is relevant here as the post is about the dispute regarding trademark registration between Hypnos and PEPS . Click on the image to read the full post.

Case Review: Hypnos Ltd. v. PEPS Industries Pvt. Ltd. & Ors

Citation : ORA/126/2012/TM/CH, Order dated 16th April, 2015 Parties Involved : Applicant : 1. Hypnos Limited (UK) Respondents : 1. Hosur Coir Foam Pvt. Ltd. 2. Peps Industries Pvt. Ltd. 3. The Registrar of Trademarks, Trademarks Registry, Chennai Brief Facts : The Applicant, a UK based family run bed manufacturing company, filed a rectification petition to cancel the registration of the ‘HYPNOS’ trademark owned by Respondent No. 1 under Class 20.…
April 24, 2015 Intellectual Property, Trademarks 0Comment 831Views 1Like
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PEPS victorious in Trademark Battle against UK bed manufacturer

A two-year-long trademark litigation between Peps, the largest spring mattress company in India, and a UK bed manufacturer, has culminated with the Indian bed manufacturer emerging victorious! The Trademark Rectification suit was initiated in 2012 by HYPNOS, UK, for removal of the registered and highly popular ‘HYPNOS’ mark of Peps, from the Trademark Registry. The British Company claimed that the mark was famous in India owing to the spill-over of its trans-border reputation. In retaliation, Peps contested HYPNOS UK’s claim that…
April 24, 2015 Intellectual Property, Trademarks 0Comment 554Views 1Like
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This image depicts the title creativity. This image is relevant because this post talks about the real role played by IP protection in creativity. Click on the image to view full post.

Role of Intellectual Property in Promoting Creativity

Does the Intellectual Property Regime play a role in promoting creativity? As stated by most governments, the objective of patent, copyright, design and other laws is to promote the progress of inventive activity and creativity. Are these laws actually achieving their stated objective? While most of us would like to believe that they are, no empirical study has been able to conclusively prove so far that IP laws actually promote creativity. The logical question that follows would be whether we…
April 9, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property, Patents, Trademarks 0Comment 566Views 1Like
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Existing Trademark blocks Apple Watch sale in Switzerland

In latest news, Apple has been banned from launching its new Watch in Switzerland as in other European countries, scheduled to be on April 24,  2015, because of an Intellectual Property Rights issue. They cannot use the image of an apple or the word 'apple' to launch their product in Switzerland because of a trademark from 1985. The trademark currently belongs to William Longe, who owns watch brand, Leonard, that first filed the trademark application. He applied to the Swiss…
April 7, 2015 Trademarks 0Comment 722Views 1Like
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The image depicts the Madras HC.

Case Brief: Shamnad Basheer v. Union of India & Others

Article contributed by Heema Shirvaikar, Intern at BananaIP Counsels, 3rd-year Law Student at Symbiosis, Pune. Facts and brief history of case: In 2011, a Writ Petition was filed before the Madras High Court by Mr. Shamnad Basheer, seeking a Writ of Declaration, to declare the establishment of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) under the Trade Marks Act, 1999, and the Patents Act, 1970 as violative of the basic structure of the Constitution of India. Shamnad Basheer, founder of…
March 11, 2015 Intellectual Property, Patents, Trademarks 0Comment 1571Views 1Like
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E-commerce Retailers face flak over alleged Counterfeits by Vendors

E-retailers have come a long way since the advent of e-commerce in India in the early 2000s. Other than a few cautious buyers, most have become comfortable purchasing an entire range of products online. However, nowadays a lot of e-commerce customers are left fuming because of counterfeit vendors gaining a foothold even in reputed e-commerce sites. In October 2014, the Delhi High Court prohibited Gurgaon-based online marketplace, ShopClues from using, manufacturing, marketing, selling, displaying or advertising the name of L’oreal…
February 18, 2015 Intellectual Property, Trademarks 0Comment 458Views 1Like
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Weekly IP Warm-UP!

GOOGLE V. SPAIN – SPANISH PUBLISHERS SUFFER AS GOOGLE NEWS CLOSES OPERATIONS A new Copyright law which has made it mandatory for Google, Yahoo and other news aggregators to pay licensing fee to all news publishers for using their stories or snippets in Google News, results in Google cutting its operations in Spain. However, the regulation allowed publishers to opt in to Google’s index, and prevent Google from paying licensing fee. COPYRIGHT REGULATION TO ALLOW PRIVATE COPYING; TO FACE IRE…
January 14, 2015 Copyrights, Media and Entertainment Law, Patents, Trademarks 0Comment 569Views 1Like
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The image reads Trademark. The post is about the Trademark Agent Exam which will be conducted soo. Click on the image to read the full post.

Understanding the Doctrine of Foreign Equivalents – Part 1

This post was first published on 10th October, 2014.   The Doctrine of Foreign Equivalents is a rule used in the Trademark Law which states that a foreign word and its equivalent English translation may be deemed confusingly similar. Under this doctrine, marks consisting of or including foreign words or terms from common, modern languages are translated into English to determine the extent to which it is generic, descriptive, the likelihood of confusion it may cause among other similar issues. The Trademark Manual of…
October 10, 2014 Intellectual Property, Trademarks 0Comment 923Views 1Like
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This image depicts the 'Trademark' and 'Registered' symbols. This post is a part of a series on what marks are permissible as trademarks. Click on the image to read the full post.

Grounds for Refusal of Trademark Registration – Part II

In the previous blog post, we discussed Section 9(1) which laid down a few absolute grounds for refusal of registration of trademarks. Today, we’ll explain in detail, Section 9(2) which states: "A mark shall not be registered as a trademark if: It is of such nature as to deceive the public or cause confusion; It contains or comprises any matter likely to hurt the religious susceptibilities of any class or section of the citizens…
July 4, 2014 Intellectual Property, Trademarks 0Comment 2507Views 1Like
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