Trademarks Archives

Trademark Infringement in the Automobile Industry Part III: Bentley Trademark suit

In furtherance of the previous post about the BMW Emblem case , the current post is regarding the luxury automobile manufacturer, Bentley Motors Inc, which prevailed in a trademark infringement lawsuit against the makers and installers of kits that transform more modest vehicles into virtual clones of the Bentley. The crux of the issue here is, whether producing and installing external body kits to inexpensive vehicles to seem similar to high-end luxury automobiles constitutes trademark infringement and dilution of the…

November 3, 2015 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, Trademarks 0Comment 1294Views 0Like

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Trademark Infringement in the Automobile Industry Part II : BMW Emblem case

This post discusses the scope of protection of black and white trade mark registrations in infringement proceedings. The OHIM (Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market) made the announcement, on 15 April, 2014, about a new common practice for trademarks registered in black and white. The OHIM and the participating national offices have now issued a Common Communication, together with details of the implementation process. As per the new Common Practice, a black & white (or grayscale) mark will only be considered…

November 3, 2015 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, Trademarks 0Comment 1955Views 0Like

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Trademark Infringement in the Automobile Industry Part I: Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto Limited

This post brings to light some of the Indian cases dealing with trademark infringement in the automobile industry. The first case that would be discussed here is that of Tata Motors. The story starts in mid 2014, when Tata Motors approached the Court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Vidya Prakash, complaining of some unknown persons engaged in the business of manufacturing, trading, distributing, storing and selling counterfeit and spurious products under the trademark of ‘Tata Motors’. Tata Motors informed the Court…

November 3, 2015 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, Trademarks 0Comment 2022Views 0Like

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Fast Moving Consumer Goods Industry

Brands – the backbone of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) valuation William Shakespeare once said “What's in a name?” For FMCG companies, it’s all about the product names that consumers identify from the TV advertisements or trips to the supermarket. It is critical to your business because: It’s a marketing tool; brand recall leads to greater sales and profitability It strengthens your licensing opportunities and therefore revenue from distributors/partners It increases your company’s valuation, leading to…

October 29, 2015 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, Trademarks 0Comment 2283Views 0Like

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The featured image is of the Lion Capital which consists of the Ashoka Chakra, with a horse and bull on either sides, and an hoisted Indian flag below it. The Lion Capital is the national emblem of India. The image is related to the post as it is a part of the Sinapse Series"Intellectual Property (IP) in India: A Decade of Progress". To read the post click here.

Intellectual Property (IP) in India: A Decade of Progress Part 16

This post exhibits the statistics of IP litigation in India in the past decade. The following table displays the statistics that were arrived at after conducting a search on Manupatra . It tabulates the estimated number of decisions passed by the Supreme Court and High Courts with respect to patents, trademarks and copyrights in the past decade. IP Decisions Passed by SC and HCs from 2004 – 2014 Year Number of Decided Cases for Patent Number of Decided Cases for Trademark Number of…

October 12, 2015 BananaIP Reporter Copyrights, Intellectual Property, Patents, Trademarks 0Comment 824Views 0Like

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Use Donald Trump’s name, and ‘You’re fired!’

The American presidential race has always been interesting, and the present one is no exception. Undoubtedly the most interesting candidate of all is Donald Trump. The highly opinionated, often loud-mouthed star of The Apprentice, who finds it hard to stay away from the spotlight is in the news again. This time Donald Trump is ‘firing’ a politically oriented clothing website which has been using Trump’s trademarked name in its domain name. The domain name in question, Stoptrump.us, sells t-shirts and…

October 3, 2015 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, Trademarks 0Comment 785Views 0Like

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Flipkart sends legal notice to blogger

Flipkart was again in the news recently. The e-commerce company sent a legal notice to a Hyderabad based blogger, Amit Bhawani, for the infringement of it trademark/logo and cyber squatting. Seems like a garden variety case of trademark infringement right? Not quite. Mr Bhawani who is technology blogger with sites like ‘Phone Radar’ and ‘Android Advices’, also ran a website called ‘amazonvsflipkart.com’. As the name suggests the website hosted a ‘customer satisfaction poll’ pitting Flipkart and Amazon against each other,…

September 15, 2015 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, Trademarks 0Comment 878Views 0Like

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And the lawsuit goes to….

Recently the Internet domain registrar, GoDaddy had its Oscar-worthy moment, winning against the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (‘Academy’ for brevity). The Academy had accused the Scottsdale, Arizona based company of cyber squatting. Originally filed in 2010, the lawsuit was filed by the Academy, stating that GoDaddy was allowing its customers "to “park” their pages and share in the revenue" collected from the advertisements on the said pages. Further the Academy stated that the internet domain registrar had…

September 14, 2015 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, Trademarks 0Comment 8Views 0Like

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Audi taken for a ride

Delhi based TT Industries, established in 1955, has managed to restrain the famous German auto maker Audi from using the mark “TT” from selling sporting articles, accessories, bags, leather and faux leather goods, or toy cars in India. TT Industries proprietor Rikab Chand Jain, filed a plaint after being aware of, Audi AG using the mark TT, to promote and sell their goods. TT Industries claims to deal in fashion and export textiles, agro-products, ready-made garments, textile piece goods, hosiery…

September 3, 2015 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, IP Commercialization/Licensing, Trademarks 0Comment 806Views 0Like

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Clash of the Titans: Tata Indigo vs. Indigo Airlines, the trademark saga continues

Recently the Times of India reported that IndiGo Airlines, one of the premier airline companies operating from India, with more than 100 flights daily, had landed in a trademark dispute with Tata Motors, another automobile giant and proprietors of the car TATA INDIGO. It is interesting to note that although Inter Globe (Prorpietors of IndiGo Airlines) and Tata Motors have been disputing for the past ten years, before the Indian Trademark Office, the news of the existence of such a dispute has…