Indian Courts
Monday, August 3
MHG IP Holding Singapore Pte Ltd & Ors. v. Anantara Galleria and Anantara & Anr.
Delhi HC | Justice Jyoti Singh | Trademark | Ex-Parte Injunction Against Real Estate Project
What happened: MHG IP Holding, part of Minor Hotel Group and owner of the ANANTARA marks used across more than 60 luxury hotels and resorts worldwide since 2000, discovered in September 2025 that an Ahmedabad real estate project was operating and advertising itself as “Anantara Galleria” through a domain registered as anantara.life and listings on property portals. A cease-and-desist notice and pre-institution mediation went unanswered, and none of the defendants appeared despite service of an advance copy.
Issue: Whether the defendants’ adoption of “Anantara”/”Anantara Galleria” for a real estate project was deceptively similar to the plaintiffs’ registered hospitality marks, warranting an ex-parte ad-interim injunction.
Ratio & Result: Finding the marks deceptively similar and the adoption aimed at trading on the plaintiffs’ goodwill, the Court restrained the defendants from using “Anantara,” “Anantara Galleria,” or the anantara.life domain in relation to real estate, hospitality, residential or allied services. Matter listed next for November 27, 2026. Read our full case analysis here.
Tuesday, August 4
Amrit Singh Mehta Trading As Mehta Cosmetics v. Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks
Delhi HC | Justice Jyoti Singh | Trademark | Restoration for Want of Statutory Notice
What happened: The ‘BLUE CHIP’ mark, applied for in 1992 but registered only in 2005 after a thirteen-year delay attributable to the Registry, was struck off the register in 2010 for non-renewal. The proprietor, who maintained he never received the registration certificate, sought restoration after RTI responses confirmed the Registry could not trace any despatch record of the certificate or a renewal notice.
Issue: Whether removal of a mark from the register without the mandatory notice under Section 25(3) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 could stand, particularly where the proprietor had no knowledge of registration in the first place.
Ratio & Result: Relying on its earlier ruling in Rakesh Kumar Mittal v. Registrar of Trade Marks (2025), the Court held that Form O-2 notice under Section 25(3) is a mandatory precondition to removal, and that mere lapse of the registration period does not itself justify striking a mark off the register. Since the Registry could not dispute non-receipt of the certificate, the proprietor could not be faulted for failing to renew. Writ allowed; Registry directed to restore and reinstate ‘BLUE CHIP’.
T-Mobile International AG and Co. KG v. The Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks and Anr.
Delhi HC | Justice Tushar Rao Gedela | Patent | Seven-Step Test for Section 3(m) Objections
What happened: T-Mobile’s patent application for optimising mobile terminal operational times and cell-change performance had been refused under Sections 3(k) and 3(m), and the Court had already remanded the matter for fresh consideration back in February 2026. What kept the appeal alive was a gap both sides flagged at argument: the Patent Office had no settled methodology for evaluating Section 3(m) objections at all. Rather than let that gap persist, the Court appointed amicus curiae Adarsh Ramanujan and used the remainder of the appeal to construct a structured test.
Issue: How should Section 3(m), which excludes mere schemes, rules or methods of performing a mental act and methods of playing games from patentability, actually be applied by examiners, and how should it be kept distinct from novelty, inventive step, and the Section 3(k) computer-program exclusion.
Ratio & Result: Reading Section 3(m) as creating four distinct exceptions joined by “or,” with “mere” qualifying the mental-act categories, the Court drew on its own rulings in Koninklijke Philips v. Sukesh Behl and Lava International v. Ericsson, the Madras High Court’s Robert Bosch decision, and EPO Board of Appeal jurisprudence to lay down a seven-step test: construe the claim as a person skilled in the art would; recognise that genuine product/apparatus claims fall outside Section 3(m) entirely; assess what a process claim monopolises as a whole; ask whether the claim could be infringed by pure thinking, reasoning or calculation, with physical means integral to the method, hardware-software interaction, or a tangible output taking a claim outside the exclusion; disregard token post-solution physical steps like printing or displaying a result; keep the inquiry separate from obviousness under the Supreme Court’s Novartis ruling; and route computer-implemented methods to Section 3(k) instead. The Court illustrated the test with six examples spanning Sudoku-solving methods, nuclear fuel-bundle arrangement, and engine and circuit-board optimisation claims, and directed the guidelines be placed before the Controller General within six weeks, closing the appeal since the underlying dispute already stood resolved by the February remand. Read our full analysis here.
Wednesday, August 5
Sky Enterprise Private Limited v. Abaad Masala & Co.
Bombay HC | Justice Somasekhar Sundaresan | Trademark | Cosmetic Rebranding to Evade Injunction
What happened: After a 2020 injunction barred Abaad Masala from using “White/Black Chinese Pepper Masala” (found deceptively similar to Sky Enterprise’s “Star Zing” family of marks), Abaad rebranded to “Frize White/Black Spicy Pepper Masala,” swapping “Star King” for “Frize” and “Chinese” for “Spicy” while retaining the packaging’s colour scheme and font. Sky Enterprise alleged this amounted to disobedience of the original order.
Issue: Whether superficial word substitutions that preserve a mark’s overall look, phonetics, and trade dress can escape an existing injunction, and whether such conduct attracts remedial directions under Order XXXIX Rule 2A CPC.
Ratio & Result: The Court held that “Chinese” and “Spicy” were phonetically close enough within the longer marks to trigger a “transposed letter effect,” and that retained packaging elements compensated for the minimal textual change, making the rebrand a “de minimis fix” that came as close as possible to what the injunction had prohibited. Treating the retail-sized half-kilogram packs as undermining Abaad’s wholesale-only defence, and noting the post-injunction marks had been registered without disclosing the 2020 order, the Court restrained the “Frize” marks too, though it permitted sale of existing stock and stopped short of civil imprisonment given the family nature of the dispute.
The Indian Performing Right Society Limited v. Hotel Appolo & Tours Private Limited
Calcutta HC (Division Bench) | Justices Debangsu Basak and Md. Shabbar Rashidi | Copyright | Communication to the Public via Hotel Cable TV
What happened: IPRS sued a Darjeeling hotel for routing cable television to guest rooms without a licence covering the literary and musical works of its members, seeking a permanent injunction, accounts of profit, and ₹9 lakh in damages. The District Judge had refused an interim injunction, holding that IPRS conflated copyright with broadcast reproduction rights and that the hotel had no role in any infringing use.
Issue: Whether extending a cable operator’s licensed feed to hotel guest rooms constitutes “communication to the public” under Section 2(ff) of the Copyright Act, 1957, and whether hotel guests qualify as “subscribers” under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 such that the operator’s own licence would suffice.
Ratio & Result: The bench held that hotel guests are not “subscribers” within the meaning of the 1995 Act, so the cable operator’s licence to the hotel does not extend to guests receiving the feed in their rooms. Reading Section 52(1)(k) as drawing a for-profit/not-for-profit distinction between hotels and residential premises, and finding that the facility added commercial value even without a separate room charge, the Court held this amounted to commercial exploitation of IPRS members’ works. District Court’s order set aside; interim injunction granted in IPRS’s favour.
Sun TV Network Limited v. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited & Ors.
Madras HC | Justice K. Kumaresh Babu | Copyright | Pre-Release Dynamic Injunction Against Piracy
What happened: Ahead of the August 7 theatrical release of “DC” (Lokesh Kanagaraj’s acting debut), producer Sun TV Network sought ad-interim orders against major ISPs and local Chennai cable operators to pre-empt piracy, seeking to cover not just known rogue sites but future infringing URLs discovered during the film’s run.
Issue: Whether a dynamic, pre-emptive blocking order was warranted given the imminent theatrical release, and how to balance that relief against the legitimate business interests of ISPs and cable operators potentially caught within its sweep.
Ratio & Result: Satisfied that irreversible injury would follow absent intervention, and conditioning relief on Sun TV furnishing an indemnity to protect respondents’ legitimate business, the Court granted the ad-interim injunction sought in both applications, restraining infringement or facilitation of infringement of “DC” for four weeks, with the matter to be relisted thereafter.
Friday, August 7
Kavitha Kuruganti v. PepsiCo India Holdings Pvt. Ltd.
Supreme Court | Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran | Plant Variety Protection | PPVFR Act, Farmers’ Rights v. Registered Variety Protection
What happened: The long-running dispute over PepsiCo India’s registration of the FL 2027 (FC-5) potato variety, used to make Lay’s chips, reached the Supreme Court after the PPVFR Authority revoked the registration on a petition by social activist Kavitha Kuruganti, who argued PepsiCo’s infringement suits against farmers made the registration contrary to public interest. The Delhi High Court’s Division Bench had restored PepsiCo’s registration, holding Section 34(h) could not be invoked on that basis alone.
Issue: Whether filing infringement suits against individual farmers to protect a registered plant variety amounts to a ground for revocation under Section 34(h) of the PPVFR Act, 2001, and how that protection interacts with the farmer-specific defence under Section 39(1)(iv).
Ratio & Result: Agreeing with the High Court that nothing on record showed the suits were vexatious or predatory, the Court held that filing suits to protect statutory rights cannot, by itself, be intimidatory or vexatious, and any such allegation must be raised and proved before the appropriate forum in the specific proceeding. PepsiCo’s registration stands restored; individual farmers remain free to invoke Section 39(1)(iv) protection if and when PepsiCo initiates proceedings against them, but PepsiCo cannot be restrained from pursuing its statutory remedies. SLPs disposed of.
Veerasekar v. State of Tamil Nadu and Another
Madras HC (Madurai Bench) | Justice R. Vijayakumar | Copyright | Refusal to Quash Charge Sheet Under Section 63
What happened: A rice mill owner in Pudukottai faced a charge sheet under Sections 51(b)(i) and 63(a) of the Copyright Act after an FIR and search turned up rice bags bearing a logo identical to “Manchukonda Nawaab,” a work registered by the managing director of Manchukonda Agrotech, along with 1,300 kg of rice and 100 empty bags carrying the copied logo. The complaint had been lodged by a company sales representative, not the individual copyright owner himself, and the petitioner sought quashing under Section 528 BNSS (the successor to Section 482 CrPC) on four grounds: lack of locus standi, a Bombay HC Nagpur Bench ruling that selling counterfeit-labelled goods isn’t infringement per se, the argument that “deceptive similarity” is a trademark concept with no place in copyright, and absence of any specific averment of knowing infringement under Section 63.
Issue: Whether a criminal copyright charge sheet can be quashed at the threshold on grounds of the complainant’s standing, a mismatched similarity test, or missing mens rea averments, where the FIR and charge sheet otherwise disclose a complete offence.
Ratio & Result: Relying on A.R. Antulay v. Ramdas Sriniwas Nayak and Manohar Lal v. Vinesh Anand, the Court held locus standi is foreign to criminal jurisprudence absent an express statutory bar, and the Copyright Act contains none; any dispute over licensing between the registered owner and his company was an internal matter the petitioner, a stranger to it, could not exploit. On similarity, the Court agreed “deceptive similarity” belongs to trademark law but found the charge sheet’s allegations, identical design, colour, font, background and even bag material, satisfied copyright’s own substantial similarity test under R.G. Anand v. Delux Films, going well beyond borderline resemblance. On mens rea, applying the four propositions from R. Kalyani v. Janak C. Mehta, the Court held that where an FIR discloses commission of an offence on its face, questions of guilty knowledge are for trial, not a quashing petition, especially since Section 63 offences are cognisable and non-bailable per the Supreme Court’s Knit Pro International ruling. Petition dismissed, with the trial court directed to decide the case on its own merits. Read our full case analysis here.
GI and IP Updates
GI & Beyond 2.0 Summit Flags 820+ Registered GIs
Union Minister Pabitra Margherita inaugurated the “GI & Beyond 2.0” Summit in New Delhi, organised by the Ministry of Textiles with the Handloom Export Promotion Council, bringing together policymakers, overseas buyers, exporters and GI stakeholders to expand market access for India’s GI-tagged handloom and handicraft products. Speaking at the summit, Margherita noted that India has added over 600 GI tags in the past twelve years, taking the total count of registered GI products past 820, and pointed to technology and innovation as key levers for widening market opportunities for GI-tagged goods going forward.
Sikkim Holds GI Consultative Group Meeting for Indigenous Products
The Geographical Indications Registry, Chennai, conducted a two-day Consultative Group Meeting on May 7–8, 2026 at Tashiling Secretariat, Gangtok, as part of the hearing process for pending GI applications filed from Sikkim. Prof. (Dr.) Unnat Pandit, Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks and Registrar of Copyrights and Geographical Indications, joined virtually, while Deputy and Assistant Registrars from the GI Registry’s Chennai and Delhi offices attended in person alongside experts and stakeholders. The meeting was organised by the Sikkim State Council of Science and Technology, which functions as the state’s nodal department for IPR matters, and is expected to move Sikkim’s pending GI applications closer to registration while strengthening recognition of the state’s indigenous heritage.
RISA: Timeless Tribal Showcased on 12th National Handloom Day
Marking the 12th National Handloom Day on August 7, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, through TRIFED, showcased India’s tribal textile heritage under its premium brand RISA: Timeless Tribal, launched earlier this year to bring tribal weaves, embroidery and handicrafts into premium domestic and international markets. The brand’s first phase covers clusters including Eri and Muga silk from Assam, Santal cotton from Jharkhand, Changpa pashmina from Ladakh, Kotpad cotton and Dongria embroidery from Odisha, and Toda embroidery from Tamil Nadu, several of which carry or are associated with existing GI protection, positioning RISA as a branding layer built on top of the underlying GI-tagged traditions.
CGPDTM Confirms Tentative Schedule for Patent and Trade Marks Agent Exams 2027
The Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks has reaffirmed the tentative timeline for the Patent Agent Examination 2027 and the Trade Marks Agent Examination 2027, to be held on January 10 and January 9, 2027 respectively across 15 centres including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Pune. Online registration runs from July 1 to September 30, 2026, with admit cards to follow from December 15, 2026, written results expected in the second week of February 2027, viva voce in the last week of February 2027, and final results in the third week of March 2027. The Office has clarified that eligibility under Section 126 of the Patents Act, 1970 will be verified only at the certificate-issuance stage, placing the onus on applicants to self-certify their eligibility at the time of registration.
Also Read: Weekly Indian IP Law Digest Sep 6 to 12 2026 | Its IP Time
International IP Law Updates
Ninth Circuit Reverses $40 Million Trade Secrets Verdict Over Flawed Jury Instruction
The Ninth Circuit overturned a $40 million verdict, a permanent injunction, and more than $17 million in attorney fees that Comet Technologies had won against rival XP Power in a Defend Trade Secrets Act dispute over radio-frequency power technology, finding that the trial court had wrongly instructed jurors that the burden of proving a trade secret was “readily ascertainable” fell on the defendant. Under the DTSA, that burden actually sits with the plaintiff, and since Comet had abandoned its parallel California state-law claim (where the burden runs the other way) without the instruction being corrected, the appellate panel held the error went to an essential element of the claim and could not be dismissed as harmless given conflicting expert testimony on reverse engineering. The case is remanded for a new trial on both liability and damages, with a dissenting judge arguing the error was harmless on the trial record.
Universal Electronics Sues Amazon Over Echo and Fire TV Patents
Remote-control and smart-home technology company Universal Electronics Inc. sued Amazon in California federal court, accusing the e-commerce giant’s Echo smart speakers, Fire TV streaming devices, and related products of infringing its patents. The filing extends UEI’s long-running pattern of enforcing its device-control and remote-pairing patent portfolio against major consumer electronics players, following earlier wins against companies including Roku, and positions Amazon as the latest target in the smart-home patent licensing space.
OpenAI Moves to Dismiss Apple’s Trade Secrets Suit Over Hardware Push
OpenAI asked a federal judge to throw out Apple’s lawsuit accusing it and two former Apple employees of misappropriating trade secrets to accelerate its move into consumer hardware, arguing in its motion that it has “no use, need, or desire” for Apple’s confidential information and is building something entirely different. OpenAI’s filing characterised Apple’s suit as an attempt to compensate for its own struggles retaining AI talent, and pushed back on claims about improper recruiting and data access, saying Apple’s own practice of letting employees use personal iCloud accounts for work created the confusion it now calls theft. Apple has separately sought a preliminary injunction, with arguments scheduled for October 1, while OpenAI’s deadline to respond to that request falls on August 17.
Novo Nordisk Wins Dutch Injunction Against Compounded Semaglutide Nasal Spray
The District Court of The Hague granted Novo Nordisk a preliminary injunction against Ceban Ziekenhuisfarmacie B.V., a Dutch compounding pharmacy, after finding its unapproved semaglutide nasal spray infringed Novo Nordisk’s supplementary protection certificate covering the compound, the active ingredient behind Wegovy, Ozempic and Rybelsus. The order requires Ceban to immediately stop distribution, pull the product from pharmacy listings and its website, disclose its supply chain including its Chinese semaglutide source, recall stock already supplied to other pharmacies, and pay penalties of up to €500,000 for non-compliance, while the court declined a separate request to enjoin a conference presentation on the product as incitement to infringe.
Ninth Circuit Sides With Bad Spaniels Dog Toy in Jack Daniel’s Dilution Fight
In a decision closing out more than a decade of litigation, the Ninth Circuit reversed a permanent injunction that had barred VIP Products from selling its “Bad Spaniels” dog toy, a parody of the Jack Daniel’s bottle bearing labels like “Old No. 2 on your Tennessee Carpet.” The panel held that Jack Daniel’s had not met its burden to show the toy was likely to tarnish its marks by dilution, finding the district court leaned on weak expert testimony and failed to properly weigh the toy’s obvious parody. This is the second time the Ninth Circuit has ruled for VIP Products in the case, which the U.S. Supreme Court previously sent back down in 2023 after holding that the lower court’s free-speech-based Rogers test could not apply where a mark was being used to identify the source of the defendant’s own goods.
California Supreme Court Rejects “Duty to Innovate” Claim Against Gilead
California’s highest court ruled 6-1 in favour of Gilead Sciences, dismissing negligence claims brought by roughly 24,000 patients who argued the company should be liable for delaying development of a safer HIV drug formulation while continuing to sell an older version linked to kidney and bone side effects. Writing for the majority, Justice Joshua Groban declined to recognise a sweeping “duty to innovate” for makers of non-defective drugs, warning that such liability would force juries to second-guess complex, hindsight-driven scientific judgments and could chill pharmaceutical innovation. Dozens of drugmakers, including Bayer, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Pfizer, backed Gilead’s appeal, while a lone dissenting justice called the company’s conduct “morally blameworthy” and urged the legislature to revisit the industry’s liability protections.
