ASWAL ASSOCIATES- Intellectual Property Law firm India

  Summary The Supreme Court transferred a patent infringement suit from Delhi High Court to Bombay High Court, holding that the first-filed groundless threats suit should be adjudicated alongside the subsequent infringement claim to avoid duplication and multiplicity of proceedings, and clarifying that Section 106 groundless threat suits can proceed independently under the Patents Act, 1970. Background The dispute arose following the commercial launch of Atomberg Technologies' "Atomberg Intellon" water purifier in June 2025. Atomberg alleged that Eureka Forbes engaged in conduct designed to intimidate and pressure its commercial distributors by issuing threats of legal action for alleged patent infringement. In response, Atomberg initiated legal proceedings under Section 106 of the Patents Act, 1970, filing a suit for groundless threats of infringement in the Bombay High Court on July 1, 2025. Shortly thereafter, on July 7, 2025, Eureka Forbes filed a patent infringement ...

  Summary The Calcutta High Court has appointed Adv. Adarsh Ramanujan as amicus curiae to comprehensively address the registrability of Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) under the Designs Act, 1970, following repeated rejections by the Indian Patent Office despite previous judicial guidance favoring GUI design protection. Background The Calcutta High Court appears determined to definitively resolve the contentious issue of GUI registrability under the Designs Act, 1970. In  Erbe Elektromedizin GmbH v. The Controller of Patents  (IPDAID/22/2024), the Court appointed Adv. Adarsh Ramanujan as amicus curiae to assist in determining questions concerning GUI design registration. This development follows the Court's earlier ruling in  Ust Global (Singapore) Pte Ltd v. The Controller of Patents and Designs , where it indicated that GUIs are registrable as designs and remanded the matter to the Indian Patent Office (IPO) for reconsideration. However, upon re-examination, the C...

Introduction On 15 March 2024, the Patent (Amendment) Rules, 2024 came into force and quietly rewrote the rhythm of patent prosecution in India. Practitioners who had spent two decades telling clients "this deadline cannot be extended, full stop" suddenly found themselves revising standard advice: many timelines that were once immovable can now be bought back, at a price, under the liberalised Rule 138. But here lies the trap — and it is a trap that has already caught applicants who read the headlines and not the fine print. The 2024 amendments are subordinate legislation made under Section 159 of the Patents Act, 1970. They can soften only those timelines that live in the Rules . Where the Act itself fixes a period and attaches a consequence — "deemed abandoned," "deemed withdrawn," "shall not be entertained" — no Rule, however generously worded, can rescue a defaulting applicant. Only Parliament can. This article does two things. First, it wal...

Background By order dated April 27, 2022, Justice Pratibha M. Singh of the Delhi High Court granted an interim injunction in favor of MakeMyTrip India Private Limited ("MMT") in its suit against Booking.com B.V. and others. MMT had sued to protect its registered trademarks "MakeMyTrip" and its variants, which Booking.com was using as keywords on Google's Ads Program to trigger its own advertisements in Google search results. MMT's grievance was that a search for "MakeMyTrip" frequently displayed, as the very first result in the advertisement category, a sponsored listing for Booking.com — one of MMT's principal competitors. MMT argued that such use of its registered mark by a direct competitor amounted to trademark infringement. Booking.com's Defense Booking.com resisted the injunction on several grounds: It relied on the European Commission's decision in Case AT.40428 — Guess , dated December 17, 2018 (the " Guess decision"...

On January 30, 2019, the Parliament of Myanmar passed the country's first modern Trademark Law, marking a significant step toward aligning Myanmar's intellectual property regime with international standards. This legislation will replace the existing practice—under which trademark rights are secured merely by registering a Declaration of Ownership with the Office of the Registration of Deeds—with a formal, examination-based trademark registration system. To administer this new regime, Myanmar will establish an Intellectual Property Office ("IPO") under the Ministry of Commerce. Transition for Existing Registrations Recognizing that numerous trademarks are already on record under the old declaration-based system, the IPO will introduce a "soft-opening" period, commencing in January 2020, during which owners of existing registrations may re-file their marks with the IPO. This re-filing window will remain open for six (6) months, and re-filed marks will be a...

The Patent (Amendment) Rules, 2019 came into effect on September 17, 2019, introducing significant changes to the framework governing expedited examination of patent applications in India. Rule 24(C) has been amended to expand the categories of applicants eligible for expedited examination. Previously limited to a narrow set of circumstances, the Rule now recognizes ten distinct categories under which an applicant may request expedited examination: Where India has been indicated as the International Searching Authority (ISA) or elected as the International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA) in the corresponding PCT application; Where the applicant qualifies as a start-up; Where the applicant qualifies as a small entity; Where the applicant(s) is/are natural person(s), and at least one such applicant is a female; Where the applicant is a Government Department; Where the applicant is an institution established by a Central, Provincial, or State Act, and is owned or controlled...

India became a member of the Madrid Protocol on July 8, 2013. At the time, the advantages of filing through the Madrid System were substantial when compared to filing a Convention or ordinary application directly in India. Initial Advantages of the Madrid Route Under the Madrid System, there was no limitation on the number of goods or services that could be listed in the specification. By contrast, applicants filing directly in India were required to pay additional fees for every character beyond 500 (excluding spaces) in the description of goods or services. Furthermore, Madrid applicants were not required to pay an association fee, whereas direct applicants with prior pending or registered applications for the same mark were liable to pay an association fee for each such prior application. Additional benefits of the Madrid route included savings on attorney fees and the convenience of centralized management of a trademark portfolio across multiple jurisdictions. Narrowing of the ...