The need for the protection of Traditional Cultural Expressions
Traditional Cultural Expressions may be defined as productions that consist of characteristic elements of traditional artistic heritage developed and maintained by a comm...
How to satisfy the ‘novelty’ condition while registering a design?
Designs are the visual features of objects, something that is solely perceived by the eye. It could be the shape, color, arrangement of lines, surface patterns, or any co...
What are well known trademarks?
The name “Amul” has attained an iconic status in India. So much so that even if a third party uses the name Amul for goods other than dairy products, consumers will assum...
Protecting brands and trademarks on the internet
The growth of internet and internet related facilities have made brands shift a major part of their business online, some generating the entirety of their income through ...
Plain packaging of tobacco products and trademark
As anti-smoking sentiment grows throughout the world, governments have increased restrictions on tobacco companies limiting the way they express these brands through adve...
Protection of Colour Trademarks
A trademark as defined under the Trade Marks Act, 1999 includes any word, name, symbol, configuration, device, shape of goods, packaging, combination of colours or any co...
Ownership of Musical works in Cinematographic films
Producers of cinematographic films use musical works to invoke a range of feelings which improves the overall experience of the audience. It creates a sense of rhythm and...
The Doctrine of Joint Authorship
It is fairly common to come across works which are the creations of multiple persons and authorship vests in all such people that contributed towards the creation of that...
Assignment of Trademark
Assignment has been defined in Section 2(1)(b) of the Trademarks Act, 1999. According to this section, an assignment has to be in writing and has to be executed by both t...
Role of Copyright societies in India
The copyright societies have an important role in the collective management of copyright. They are legal bodies that serve the interests of the copyright owners, users as...
Unconventional Trademarks and Registration Challenges
Besides traditional trademarks that include device, brand, heading, label, name, there is a new category of modern marks that are protected in some countries which are kn...
What is a 3D Trademark?
Introduction The definition of mark under section 2(1)(m) in the Trademarks Act, 1999 includes “shape of goods” and “their packaging” and any combination of such shape o...
Compulsory licensing in Copyright
What is a Compulsory License? Compulsory licenses are permissions from the government that allows someone else to use the copyright of the owner without his consent. In t...
Copyright and Broadcaster’s rights
What is a broadcast? The Copyright Act, 1957 originally used the term ‘radio-diffusion’ under section 2(v) to include communication to the public through any means of wir...
Copyright and User Generated Content
Remixing a song, streaming gameplay on youtube and collaborating with other artists on TikTok have become mainstream and garner millions of views. However, this poses an ...
Copyright in Registered Designs
Introduction Copyright in registered designs means that the author has the exclusive rights to apply a design to any article in any class. The proprietor of a registered ...
Industrial Design vs Product Design
What is Industrial Design? Industrial design is the process of designing articles (products, devices and objects) to attract customers and improve their marketability. In...
How to become an industrial designer?
Industrial Design (ID) is the professional practice of designing products, devices and services which are used by people around the world. The main focus of an industrial...