Paytm, the largest e-wallet company in India, which saw a drastic surge in user volume post-demonetization, has found itself embroiled in a controversy over its logo with the US-based PayPal, also a digitized payment system. Paypal claims that Paytm’s logo is ‘deceptively and confusingly similar’ to that of the global giant’s. PayPal further claims that Paytm is free-riding on the goodwill of PayPal. What is similar between the two logos is that the first syllable of both the logos is…
The following presentation titled “Basics of Specification Drafting”, was delivered on 18th December, 2016 by Mr. Somashekar Ramakrishna, Senior Partner, BananaIP Counsels, at National Law School of India University, Bangalore (NLSIU) to the Post Graduate Diploma Intellectual Property Rights Law PGDIPR students as a part of their course.
The Presentation included the following topics:
Object of Patent Law
Specification Types
In the Indian Patent Act
Specification Contents
Perspectives
Example Invention
Title
Preamble
Technical…
The following presentation titled “Patentability Analysis”, was delivered on 17th December, 2016 by Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala, Chief IP Attorney, BananaIP Counsels, at National Law School of India University, Bangalore (NLSIU) to the Post Graduate Diploma Intellectual Property Rights Law PGDIPR students as a part of their course.
The Presentation included the following topics:
Patentability requirements
Patentable Subject Matter
Exclusions
Section 3(j)
Section 3(k)
Section 3(i)
Industrial Applicability
Novelty
Inventive Step…
A meeting with IP Stakeholders was held by the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks to discuss the steps taken by the IPO for improving processes within the IPO & the impact these steps have made.
The IPO said that it had taken the following steps to streamline the patent process:
Updating of the Application Numbering System – This step was taken to bring the Indian patent application numbering system at par with the international…
Subject matter eligibility is one of the most rapidly evolving issues in Patent Law. The US Courts have avoided defining what qualifies as an abstract idea. Most of the software related inventions are being considered patent ineligible based on the Alice case.
The Alice case gave us a two-part analysis for determining whether software claims are eligible for patenting. First step in the analysis is to “determine whether claims at issue are directed to one of those patent ineligible concepts”. If the…
Well, needless to say, Intellectual Property Law is such an area of law which is somewhat alien to a large section of public. What prompted me to write this article are the constant queries that I receive from people around me, being an Intellectual Property Attorney. Through the medium of this article, I would like to draw the attention of readers towards various misconceptions about Intellectual Property Law. And mind you, there are a lot. I take this opportunity to…
Are IP attorneys expected to behave in a particular way? Always formal, poker faced and polished? Why are we driven by these unsaid, yet strictly imposed, diligently followed and unbelievably fettered, so called "professional etiquette." I feel suffocated and wrongfully restrained by these norms, and wonder if all attorneys have to live with them for a life time.
Shedding some of those chains, I am sharing one of my more light-hearted experiences as a patent attorney. I hope you will enjoy it.…
Iceland (the country ) is a leading exporter of frozen fish and seafood to several countries in the EU. Recently, native companies like ‘Clean Iceland’ and ‘Iceland Gold’ have faced trouble in marketing their products due to confusion over the name which clashes with ‘Iceland Foods’ – a renowned frozen food supermarket chain that has subsisted since the 70’s.
‘Iceland Foods’ for several years used to be under the control of Icelandic investors and later Icelandic banks. As the spokesperson…
The following presentation titled “Introduction to IP and Licensing”, was delivered on 26th November, 2016 by Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala, Chief IP Attorney, BananaIP Counsels, at Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B) on IPRs and Licensing to the Post Graduate Programme Management (PGPM)students.
The topics of the presentation included:
Introduction to IP and Licensing
Nature of IP and Forms
Licensing
Intellectual Property
Subject Matter
Exclusivity
Types of Licenses
Royalty Types
Example of Integrated Licensing…
Instagram, the Facebook-owned photosharing app has opposed tech giant Microsoft over the usage of the trademark suffix ‘gram’ that Microsoft intends to use for its products. Instagram has endeavoured to block Microsoft from having ‘Actiongram’ federally registered as a trademark owing to the use of the suffix ‘gram’.
According to Instagram’s Notice of Opposition with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) the company is convinced that it “will be damaged by the registration of the Actiongram mark,” as Microsoft’s…