Obhan & Associates

The odds of successfully obtaining or protecting a trademark depend on various factors. For example, the presence of identical or similar marks, either pre-existing on the trade marks register or available in the market is a fundamental test. Another factor is the proposed mark’s distinctiveness, or its ability to stand out on its own. ...

When hardcoded statutory deadlines are violated, can delays be condoned? This was the central question answered by the Delhi High Court in The European Union Represented by the European Commission vs. Union of India. The court allowed for an extension of a non-extendable statutory deadline in a patent matter because of the exceptional circumstances of the case. ...

Cinema is a way of life in India, and the one film that epitomizes this national obsession is Sholay. Released nearly half a century ago, Sholay is a genre-defining film, whose appeal transcends all boundaries of geography, language, ideology, and class, and that established standards for what we now call “masala” blockbusters. ...

Trademarks in India are governed by the Trade Marks Act, 1999 (“Act”) and Trademark Rules, 2017. The Act provides the procedure for the registration of any mark capable of being represented graphically as a word, device, label, numerals, or combination of colours, shape or sound, and capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one person from another. In other words, a trademark is a source identifier of businesses, products and services. ...

The forum for adjudicating commercial suits in India is governed by the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 (“CCA”), where cases are heard by courts at different levels depending on the valuation of the suits. Lesser-valued cases are heard by courts lower in the judicial hierarchy and fall outside the direct scrutiny of the CCA, thus being subject to relatively lower regulation. ...

Inventions that fall within, or overlap with, disclosures in the prior art are called “selection inventions”. Generally, selection inventions involve the selection of one or more specific embodiments, such as individual elements, subsets, or sub-ranges, within a larger known set or range disclosed in the prior art. This raises critical questions around how the novelty and inventive step of selection patents should be judged. ...

Design marking is a method used by proprietors to signal that their article is protected by design rights. It entails “marking” an article in a manner that informs the public at large that the article in question is the subject matter of a registered design. The issue of whether design marking is necessary or not has come up on occasion before Indian courts, who have tackled how such marking acts as an indicator of registration, and explained the rights that follow. ...

India’s ace badminton player PV Sindhu created history by winning a bronze medal in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics held recently, joining the ranks of a select few who have one more than individual medal in the history of the games. ...

The Designs office has now made its register electronically available, thus joining the ranks of the Patents E-register, making the database of registered designs available in entirety. ...

As intellectual property disputes grow in number in India, corresponding questions arise regarding the most appropriate adjudicating authority to be approached for redress. Besides regular courts, IP disputes also occasionally make their way into arbitrations. But the circumstances under which IP disputes can be referred to arbitration are not always clear. ...