Haldiram Bhujiawala: IPAB Order

Image from hereThe IPAB on April 26, 2013 ordered for the removal of trademark registration made in favour of Kolkata based – Haldiram Bhujiawala. This order ended a long standing family dispute over the use of the trademark Haldiram Bhujiawala. (for IPAB order see here). Factual Matrix The trademark ‘Haldiram Bhujiawala’ was coined in the year 1941 by Mr. Ganga Bishan (whose nickname was Haldiram), for his business - the manufacture and...

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Guest Post: Impugning novelty the Novartis way

Carrying on with our lively debate on the merits of the Supreme Court's judgement in the Novartis case, Siva Thambisetty has sent us this reply to Darren's rejoinder, which we had published over here. This is the first time we've had such an extended debate on the blog and I hope we can have more such debate on other aspects of IP law. For the earlier exchange between Darren and Siva, please click over here, here and here.Impugning novelty the Novartis wayby Siva ThambisettyI am really grateful to the exchange here and for comments below each...

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Comparative Advertising: Reckitt Benckiser trumps Hindustan Lever Ltd again

The Delhi High Court in yet another order granted Reckitt Benckiser an interim injunction against Hindustan Lever Ltd (HUL). This is the second order granted in favour of Reckitt Benckiser against HUL recently (read the first one here).The dispute may be traced back to Reckitt Benckiser’s (plaintiff’s)TV commercial and print campaign which compared the germ killing capabilities of its product Dettol Healthy Kitchen and HUL’s (defendant) Vim Liquid. These advertisements supposedly contained truthful statements about the germ killing capabilities...

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The (Great) Gatsby Files: IPAB decides in favour of Fem Care Pharma Ltd.

The IPAB recently decided a trademark dispute with respect to use of the tradename ‘Gatsby'. The dispute here though was in relation to perfumeries and cosmetics products, not the recent cinematic reproduction of the novel ‘The Great Gatsby.’ Mandom Corporation, a Japanese company filed a rectification petition in 2005 to remove the trademark registration of Gatsby. The trademark was registered by a well known Indian cosmetics company Fem Care...

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (May 4th Week)

SpicyIP saw a very busy week with many interesting developments -Image from hereThe week started with Sai’s insightful post on Microsoft v Motorola. The 207 page judgment of JudgeJames L Robart on fixing the FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) royalty rate, is significant as its sets out, for the first time, a framework for negotiating a FRAND royalty rate. The opinion adequately addresses the problems of patent hold-up and royalty stacking...

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Comparative Advertising: Delhi HC (Reckitt Benckiser v. Hindustan Lever Limited)

Hindustan Lever Limited(HUL) aired a television commercial which depicted a child being sick because of the alleged use of Dettol as an antiseptic liquid in bathing water whilst promoting the superiority of Hindustan Lever Limited’s Lifebuoy Soap. The plaintiff, Reckitt Benckiser filed a suit for an ad interim injunction against the telecast of the television commercial of defendant Hindustan Lever Limited’s Lifebuoy Soap, which was disparaging and denigrating the reputation and goodwill of the plaintiff's product Dettol in the commercial market....

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Drug price control order (DPCO) 2013 : What's in store?

Last week on Wednesday, May 15 the department of pharmaceuticals issued the new Drug price control order 2013 (can be accessed here) which will alter price regulation dynamics and substantially increase the number of medicines covered by price cap umbrella. The earlier DPCO order regulated prices of only 74 bulk drugs whereas the current DPCO order will regulate prices of as many as 348 medicines. The DPCO 2013 will come into effect somewhere around...

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Micolube: Dual Protection and the Doctrine of Election

On 15th May, 2013 a three judge bench of the Delhi High Court delivered its decision on the Micolube case that was reserved to it by a single Judge Bench of the Delhi High Court in 2011. The plaintiffs in the case were registered owners of  designs who claimed that the defendants were infringing on their registered designs,  and sought the remedies of suing for infringement, even when the defendant is a registrant as well as that of passing off against the defendants. The issues framed by the Court were whether the two remedies...

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SpicyIP Tidbit: IPXI releases latest edition of its Rulebook.

The IPXI (Intellectual Property Exchange International) is the world's first financial exchange for licensing and trading intellectual property rights. My previous post on this can be found here.  The IPXI, last week, released the Rulebook that is to govern its first offerings.  This Rulebook is the product of interactions among  the various members of the IPXI which includes many IP owners as well. This Rulebook, which includes the additions recommended by the IPXI Rules Committee,(which is composed of the representatives of the...

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The Times Publishing House threatens to sue our blogger for alleged defamation - we ain't going down without a fight!

Aparajita Lath - SpicyIP BloggerTake a good hard look at the photograph on the right. It’s a photograph of one of our youngest bloggers – Aparajita Lath, an innocent 22 year old gifted law student at the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS), one of the top law schools in India. Do you think this girl is capable of hurting anybody much less defame one of the largest media companies in India? Well, apparently there is somebody either at...

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Microsoft v. Motorola: A FRAND-ly formula for fixing royalties?

The ‘FRAND wars’ hit India earlier this March with Swedish based Ericsson suing Mircomax Informatics Ltd. for alleged infringement of their standard essential patents (SEPs) relating wireless technology standards. As an interim arrangement, Micromax agreed to pay Ericsson 1.25% to 2% on the sale price as royalty to Ericsson, an incredibly high rate as Prashant pointed out earlier over here. The fixing of FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory)...

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Guest Post: A rejoinder from the IPKat

Continuing with our debate, between Darren Smyth of IPKat fame and Siva Thambisetty, on the merits of the Supreme Court's decision in the Novartis case, we have for our readers a rejoinder from Darren in response to Siva's last post on this issue.The two previous posts on this issue can be accessed over here and here. A Rejoinder from the IPKat, by Darren Smyth I was very interested to read the thoughts of Siva Thambisetty. However, with the greatest of respect I think that she is also committing a category error, this time in relation...

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