Here is a brief recap of IP developments from last week. Do read our summaries of the post about a party seeking help from gods in a trademark dispute and the post on Makemytrip ad words case.
Blogposts
Angering the Gods: A Relook at the VBM Trademark Infringement Case
Holy Trinity of Hindu Gods against trademark infringement allegations? Recently, in a trademark infringement dispute, the defendant pleaded that the impugned VBM mark was an acronym for the trinity of Hindu Gods- Vishnu, Brahma, and Mahesh. Read Tejaswini’s post to know more.
Delhi High Court Checks-in With Clarity in Makemytrip and Booking.com Keyword Dispute
Delhi High Court checks in with clarity on keywords and trademark infringement in this long-standing dispute. Read SpicyIP intern Vedika Chawla’s post on this development below.
Case Summaries
Pepsico India Holdings Pvt. Ltd. v. Kavitha Kuruganti on 9 January 2024 (Delhi High Court)
A division bench of the Delhi High Court set aside the Single Judge’s order revoking the plaintiff’s plant variety registration. The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority had revoked the plaintiff’s plant variety for furnishing incorrect information regarding the date of the first sale of the potato variety and its category being “new” instead of “extant”. Partially setting aside the impugned order, the Division Bench held that incorrect mention of the date of first sale is not sufficient to revoke the registration u/s 34 of the Plant Varieties Act.
Novartis AG v. Natco Pharma Ltd. on 9 January 2024 (Delhi High Court)
A division bench of the Delhi High Court set aside a Single Judge order setting aside the Controller’s order granting a patent to the plaintiff for a combined complex of sacubitril and valsartan. In an extremely detailed order ascertaining the limitations of the pre-grant oppositions in patent examination process, the Division bench held that there is a clear distinction between the examination and opposition proceedings and the two cannot be merged. The court further clarified that while Rule 55 prescribes for a hearing with regard to the representation filed and does not confer a right to participate in the examination process comprising of independent evaluation and assessment of the patent application.
Dismissing a writ petition against the impugned order rejecting the petitioner’s pre-grant opposition, the Delhi High Court emphasized the obligation of a party to comply with the relevant rules to ensure that its records are updated. In this case, the petitioner alleged that they weren’t able to attend the hearing due to non-service of the hearing notice on its new email address. However, the court rejected this argument holding that the petitioner did not make a formal, specific communication regarding the change of email and thus it cannot take advantage of the situation that has arisen.
Other IP Developments
International IP Development
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- Source: https://spicyip.com/2024/01/spicyip-weekly-review-january-8-january-14.html
