Thematic Highlight
A Draft “Open” IP Syllabus
In this post, Swaraj shared the first draft version of an ‘Open’ IP Syllabus that he along with a small team of researchers has worked on in the last few months. The syllabus is aimed to contain materials that are legally and publicly available free of cost and outside of paywalls, touching upon diverse themes concerning intellectual property law. While the completion of the entire syllabus is expected to take some time, this post includes the draft of the first two chapters of this proposed syllabus. These chapters deal, in turn, with ‘Introduction to IP’ and the ‘Approaches to IP/IP Lenses’. The draft can be accessed here.
Decisions from Indian Courts
- The Calcutta High Court in Duroply Industries Limited v. Ncl Industries Limited, granted an ad-interim injunction restraining the defendant from using any marks deceptively similar to that of the plaintiff’s registered ‘DURODOOR’ and ‘DURODOOR TILES’ marks. [February 25, 2021]
- The Bombay High Court in Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd. v. Tv9 Media Maharashtra Pvt. Ltd., granted a temporary injunction against the defendant restraining them from broadcasting or communicating to the public films or parts of films on which the plaintiff has the copyright. [February 24, 2021]
- The Delhi High Court in Cadila Healthcare Limited v. Uniza Healthcare LLP, dismissed an application by the defendant for rejection of plaint, and granted an interim injunction restraining the defendant from manufacturing or selling products with the ‘ZACLEAR’ or any other deceptively similar mark to that of the plaintiff’s unregistered ‘ZYCLEAR’ mark. [February 22, 2021]
- The Delhi High Court in The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust India v. www.friendwithbooks.co, granted an ad interim injunction restraining the defendant from reproducing the plaintiff’s copyrighted works. [February 22, 2021]
![]()
Image from here
- The Delhi High Court in Exide Industries Limited v. Krishna International, appointed a Local Commissioner to inspect the non-compliance of interim injunction issued against the defendants restraining them from using the plaintiff’s registered EXIDE mark. [February 17, 2021]
- The Delhi High Court in Makemytrip (india) Pvt. Ltd. v. M/S Travelogy, granted the plea for permanent injunction from using the plaintiff’s MakeMyTrip and MMT marks, against one of the defendants who had no objections to the decree. [February 17, 2021]
- A Bangalore commercial court has granted an ex-parte temporary injunction in a passing off and copyright infringement suit filed by TATA for protecting their product Sunfeast YiPPee! Magic Masala against the Nepal-based Chaudhary Group’s Wai Wai X-Press Noodles Majedar Masala.
Other News from around the Country
- The government of India has released the new Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediary and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
![]()
Image from here
- A group of academics has written to the Delhi High Court to rule against the academic publishers that have filed a copyright infringement case against Sci Hub and Libgen.
- An interview of Alexandra Elbakyan was recently published on The Wire Science discussing her Sci Hub project and its importance for research.
- Radio companies have recently challenged the IPAB ruling that allowed members of the IPRS to claim separate royalties from radio stations.
- The cloth dolls made by tribal communities in the Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh will soon get a Geographical Indication Tag.
- The popular Free Fire streamer Total Gaming claims to have received over 20 fake copyright notices in the past two months including a recent copyright strike on YouTube.
News from around the World
- European news publishing companies are pushing for a similar law to that of Australia to force companies such as Facebook and Google to pay for using their content.
- Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is in talks with Spanish publishers to enter licensing deals, to restart the Google News service in Spain which was shut down in 2014.
![]()
Image from here
- Skyhorse Publishing, the publisher which released Woody Allen’s memoir ‘Apropos of Nothing’ is deliberating on filing a copyright infringement suit against HBO for its docuseries “Allen v. Farrow” that used excerpts from their audiobook without permission.
- Barclays and the TD Bank Group have joined the Open Innovation Network, a consortium to defend Linux from patent trolls.
- The bike manufacturer Peloton has filed petitions with the Patent and Trademark Office seeking cancellation of rival Mad Dogg Athletics Inc.’s marks for the words ‘spin’ and ‘spinning’, which move has been rebuked by Mad Dogg.
