Introduction For commercial brands, the race to secure a trademark is fought on two distinct fronts: at the registry desk and in the marketplace. Recently, the Delhi High Court has spotlighted this delicate balance in its ruling in Parle Products Pvt. Ltd. v. The Registrar of Trademarks & Anr.[1], and has reinforced that the rights of a senior adopter or the prior filer shall triumph over the rights of a subsequent user’s market evidence. This judgment underscores that eve

INTRODUCTION For years, Indian businesses have quietly watched their competitors lift their brand names off the search results page. By bidding per click on a rival’s trademark, your own sponsored link surfaces the moment a customer types that rival’s name. The Delhi High Court’s decision in Hindware Ltd. v. Grohe India Pvt. Ltd.- confronts the practice directly. The Court held that selling a registered trademark as an advertising keyword is itself an infringing “use in adver

The recent case of Products & Ideas v. Nilkamal Ltd. & Ors.[1], addresses the issues that lie at the convergence of parallel imports, territoriality, and the obligation of intermediaries in international supply chains, all of which remain central to ongoing debates in intellectual property law. Background and Facts The Appellant, Products & Ideas, in 2017, entered into an Exclusive Agency Agreement (EAA) with Stella Industrial Co. Ltd. (SIC), a Chinese entity that owned the

Introduction With the growth of modern marketing and branding, trademarks are no longer limited to names and logos. Today, the shape, packaging, colors, and overall appearance of a product also play an important role in helping consumers identify a brand. In the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector especially, customers often recognize products through their packaging without carefully reading the label. This has created a legal conflict between design law, which grants

Introduction Generative AI is a type of AI that generates content such as images, videos, texts, code, etc by analysing and learning the patterns of the existing data. While technology promises significant innovation across industries, it also raises profound legal questions such as what role does Copyright Law play with respect to Gen AI? Since, AI is using pre-existing data to generate fresh content, does it not constitute copyright infringement? Therefore, how does the exi

This is a regarding the statutory requirement to file Statements of Working (Form 27) in respect the Indian granted patents. In accordance with the Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2024, every patentee and licensee is now required to furnish a working report in respect of every period of three financial years. The mandatory filing window for the current three-year block has now commenced. This filing is required in either of the following situations: All patents granted on or bef

In India, the law governing the trade marks is embodied in the Indian Trade Marks Act, 1999 (hereinafter referred to as “ the Act ”). Two of the imperative provisions for brand owners are Section 27- which deals with the common law remedy of passing off- and Section 29- which deals with statutory infringement action of trade marks that are registered. While the two concepts, infringement and passing off, may be overlapping, they both, however, serve distinct but complementar

In the case of Alkem Laboratories Limited v. Prevego Healthcare and Research Private Limited, [1] the Delhi High Court, delivered a significant judgment on January 17, 2026, revisiting the scope of trade mark protection over common alphabetic expressions in the pharmaceutical industry. The Plaintiff, Alkem Laboratories Limited , a pharmaceutical manufacturer, claimed use of the marks and in respect of multivitamin and nutraceutical preparations since the year 1998 and 2008

Rebranding in trademark law is not a cosmetic or purely commercial exercise; rather, it is a deliberate restructuring of proprietary identity. When a company changes its corporate name or primary commercial identifier, it effectively alters the legal mechanism through which that goodwill is recognized, preserved, and enforced. High profile transformations such as Facebook’s rebranding to Meta Platforms and Twitter’s transition to X demonstrate that rebranding often accompanie

Introduction As global brands enter the Indian market, they are often reshaped by local speech patterns. While we’ve proudly built a reputation as a country rich in culture, curiosity, and an unstoppable drive to succeed, we also share certain quirks that unite us in collective amusement. One of the most endearing and consistently entertaining of these is our habit of mispronouncing brand names. Whether it’s someone confidently calling Puma “Poo-ma” or Xiaomi as “Jao-mee”/