Introduction Trademark conflict in the pharmaceutical sector is a unique situation in Indian trademark law. Medicinal products have the potential to cause actual harm to the patient receiving the product if there is any doubt about the correct product, rather than just commercial loss, due to the possibility of someone thinking that two competing marks are the same. This has led to a more demanding approach by courts to pharmaceutical marks, which now require a question to

In the case of Capital Foods Private Limited v. Kishan Rameshbhai Kaswala Trading as K3 Masala[1], the Delhi High Court granted an ex parte ad interim injunction in favour of Capital Foods Private Limited (Plaintiff), restraining the Defendant from using the trade marks “SCHEZWAN DIPPING CHUTNEY” and other deceptively similar variations. Background of the Dispute Capital Foods Private Limited, the company behind the iconic Ching's Secret brand, conceived the mark "SCHEZWAN

Introduction When a statutory intellectual property right gets wiped off the register mid-litigation, who bears the burden of the legal fees incurred along the way? Recently in the case of Crocs Inc. USA v. M/s Bata India Ltd. & Ors.[1], the Delhi High Court examined whether a defendant can recover actual litigation costs under Section 35 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC), as amended by the Commercial Courts Act, 2015, after a design infringement suit becomes infruct

In a significant ruling on the patentability of pharmaceutical combination inventions, the Delhi High Court set aside an order from the Indian Patent Office refusing the grant of a patent for a triple-drug combination used in cancer treatment, under Indian Patent Application No. 450/DELNP/2015, titled "Pharmaceutical Combination Comprising a BRAF Inhibitor, an EGFR Inhibitor and Optionally a PI3K Alpha Inhibitor. Aggrieved by the rejection from the Indian Patent Office, th

Introduction Trademark registrations rarely lapse due to deliberate abandonment. More often they are lost quietly, because a renewal notice went to the wrong desk and nobody was left to answer it. That is essentially what happened to the mark “B.P.R.”, used since 1979 and registered in 1999, and it eventually brought Rajinder Singh to the Delhi High Court, more than six years after his registration lapsed for want of a notice that never reached him. The judgment is barely a d

Deliberating and dissecting the provision of Section 107- A, the Madras High Court has delved much deeper in explaining the Bolar exemptions in a post-trial judgement in the case of Novartis Ag. v Venkata Narayana Active Ingredients Pvt. Ltd. The Court decreed patent infringement holding that the defendant Venkata Narayana Active Ingredients Pvt. Ltd's manufacture and export of Vildagliptin API used for treating type-2 diabetes infringed Novartis's Indian Patent No. 212

In a significant judgment, the Hon'ble Bombay High Court has set aside an order refusing Deepak Nitrite Limited's patent application, reiterating that patent refusals under Section 15 of the Patents Act must be supported by cogent reasoning, proper inventive step analysis, and identifiable evidence, particularly where the Controller relies on "common general knowledge." Background The petition concerned Patent Application No. 202021019409 titled "A Free-Flowing Food Grade Sod

Introduction In many instances, a cross-border distribution agreement can create an interesting trademark issue: A foreign manufacturer allows an Indian party to register and use the trademark in India and the Indian party develops goodwill based on such trademark registration and then the relationship goes sour between them. The question is then whether the rights of the first user of the mark overseas and who has continued to supply goods in India is superior to the rights

On July 6, dismissing the appeal filed by Intra-cellular Therapies , the Delhi High Court upheld the Controller's decision on the grounds of lack of novelty and non-patentability under Section 3(d) while choosing not to delve into the more rigorously contested inventive-step objection. Besides dealing with the controversial coverage/ disclosure dichotomy, the discussion focused on the “person in the know” versus the "person ordinarily skilled in the art" and the missing lin

Novartis AG and Astex Therapeutics Ltd. have finally received a grant of a patent under number 594997 for their application relating to Ribociclib (Kisqali®), a selective CDK4/6 inhibitor indicated for the treatment of HR+/HER2- breast cancer, after contesting four pre-grant oppositions filed against the application in an exhaustive and detailed 198-page order. The application drew oppositions from Natco Pharma and three individual Opponents. The application was filed in 20