SpicyIP Highlight of the Week !
Our SpicyIP Highlight of the Week was Balaji’s summary post on the Ferani Hotels v. State Information Commissioner judgement that brought up for consideration a question that involved an interesting overlap of intellectual property and the RTI. It dealt with a writ petition filed by Ferani Hotels against an order issued by the State Information Commissioner in an appeal filed by Mr. Nusli Wadia, directing the Bombay Municipal Corporation to disclose information concerning the petitioner’s real estate development plans under an RTI application filed by Mr. Wadia. The petitioner’s principal argument was that the information sought fell within the ambit of ‘trade secrets’, and was thereby exempt from public disclosure under Section 8 of the RTI Act. Balaji writes that the Bombay HC held that these documents, having been submitted to the Bombay Municipal Corporation for approval, formed a part of public records and could not be excluded from the scope of the RTI.
Up first, we had Devika covering a recent SC judgement in Mangalore Ganesh Beedi Works v. CIT which considered whether the acquisition of trademarks, copyright and technical know-how can be included within the ambit of ‘plant and machinery’ so as to grant depreciation/amortization against them under Section 32 of the Income Tax Act, 1961. She takes us through the facts of the case, and the observations made by the Court, ultimately noting that the SC ruled in favour of the Assessee, holding that the acquisition of IP rights falls within the bracket of ‘plant’ as they are capital in nature and depreciation in income tax can be claimed against them.
Next, we had a guest post by Prashant Reddy where he critically discusses the CTR v. Sergi case concerning a patent infringement litigation battle between an Indian company, CTR Manufacturing Industries Ltd. And French company Sergei where Justice Gautam Patel of the Bombay High Court issued an interim junction in favour of the plaintiff, the owner of the patent under dispute. He briefly looks into the crux of the patent itself and the facts of the case, and then moves on to discussing some of the significant issues considered by Justice Patel. He disagrees with the Court’s reasoning on certain points, and notes several important considerations that the Court failed to take into account before arriving at its conclusion, but nevertheless appreciates that the judgement has been reasoned well.
Shruthi then put up a post announcing a call for submissions from the Indian Journal of International Economic Law for two of its forthcoming issues. The Journal takes rolling submissions, and the deadline for the upcoming issues are 25th March, 2016.
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
- Virtual Gaming Technologies LLC sues DraftKings, FanDuel And Fox Sports for infringement of two patents in the real-time, interactive gaming system arena
- Verizon sued for infringement of TV tech patents owned by European technology company, Kudelski.
- GoPro sued for infringing on C&A Marketing’s Polaroid Cube design patent
- Vancouver’s Web Presence builds trademark infringement tracking program to combat counterfeiting in China.
- Disney to receive special trademark protection in China