A ‘Legal Issues Seminar- General IP’ (LIS-GIP) was conducted by Anurathna Mathivanan, Associate, titled “Whether there is a threshold to determine ‘continuous use’ under the defence of prior use?”. The seminar analysed the relevant provisions under the Trade Marks Act, 1999, which provide the defence of prior use and its pre-requisites. The seminar also analysed judicial precedents that considered the criteria and threshold to determine the extent of use to be proved with evidence, to qualify as ‘continuous use’. The session concluded with an engaging discussion into the judicial trend in determining what constitutes as ‘use’ of a mark, and the criteria of determining the significance of use to claim goodwill generated under the mark.

The presentation can be accessed here.

In a Public Notice dated March 01, 2023, the Office of CGPDTM appealed to all the IP Practitioners and Officials to volunteer their time strengthening activities of the National Intellectual Property Awareness Mission (NIPAM). The mission aims to achieve its objectives by imparting training, spreading IP Awareness, encouraging protection of IP and its fair use. IP Professionals who wish to join in the said voluntary drive can register using the link: https://forms.gle/MRyjqABdcGHeCDwD6

This International Women’s Day, ALG members gathered to celebrate entrepreneurial women in digital spaces. The firm’s Diversity & Inclusion section organised an activity keeping in line with UN’s theme for this year – “#DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”. The activity was intended to highlight women-led/women centric small businesses in the digital space. The members shared various women-led small businesses in their circles and encouraged each other to support them. A list of the the small businesses highlighted by members can be found here.

ALG wishes all you strong, intelligent, talented and simply wonderful women a very Happy Women’s Day!

During last week’s PWS Session, Sucharitha Banda, Associate, led a discussion on “Should Grant of Absolute Moral Rights Be Extended to An Author’s Estate?”. The session began with a discussion on the opportunity costs involved waiving off the moral rights, in the backdrop of the recent modification Roald Dahl’s works by his estate. The discussion delved into whether neutral bodies would be better equipped to safeguard the interests of an author versus the author’s estate. The session concluded with the members brainstorming over whether un-assignable moral rights which subsist exclusively with the author and die with them are better suited to serve the authors’ interest.

Interns – Shreya Aggarwal, Dhananjay Sharma, Harshita Dixit and Mahima Chanchalani have commenced their General IP Internship with the firm’s law practice.

We hope their stay in the firm during the 4 week period of their internship will be mutually enriching and that the firm and they will learn exciting things from each other!