Indian Courts
Monday, July 27
Cipla Limited v. Union of India & Ors.
Delhi HC | Justice Saurabh Banerjee | Trademark | Impleadment in Renewal Dispute
What happened: Cipla’s writ petition seeking restoration and renewal of its ‘NO DARAR’ trademark (Application No. 1694972, Class 5, registered February 7, 2011) was disposed of in May 2025 with directions permitting restoration and renewal, which the Trade Marks Registry duly carried out. A separate entity, claiming to be adversely affected by that order, later approached the Supreme Court, which granted it liberty to raise its grievance before the Delhi High Court. Acting on that liberty, the applicant filed for impleadment under Order I Rule 10 CPC and for recall of the May 2025 order under Section 151 CPC.
Issue: Whether the applicant, a stranger to the original writ proceedings concerning renewal of Cipla’s trademark, qualified as a ‘necessary and proper party’ whose presence was required for the Court to effectually adjudicate the petition, and whether the recall application could be entertained on that basis.
Ratio & Result: Renewal of a trademark registration is a matter strictly between the registered proprietor and the Trade Marks Registry; no third-party right is engaged at that stage, and anyone aggrieved by the registration has the separate statutory remedy of filing for rectification, a step the applicant had admittedly never taken. The applicant could not show any connection to the facts underlying the original petition and could not use these applications to contest the Registry’s subsequent conduct, which fell outside the scope of an already disposed-of petition. Both applications, along with the connected stay application, dismissed with no order as to costs.
Nitin Gadkari v. Meta Platforms Inc. & Ors.
Bombay HC | Justice Abhay Ahuja | Personality Rights | AI-Generated Deepfakes
What happened: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari was granted leave to institute a civil suit against Meta, Google, X and others over posts and AI-generated deepfake videos allegedly showing him and his family profiting personally from the Centre’s E20 ethanol-blending fuel policy, a scheme administered by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas rather than his own Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
Issue: Whether leave should be granted to sue multiple platform operators over content that fabricates the Minister’s likeness and statements using AI, and what interim protection, including a possible takedown or blocking order, the facts might eventually warrant.
Ratio & Result: Leave to institute the suit granted; the plea for interim relief will be taken up separately at a later hearing. The petition draws a line between legitimate criticism of the E20 policy, which it says is not being targeted, and fabricated AI content falsely attributing personal profit to the Minister. Suit to proceed on that basis.
Jagdish Dahyalal Patel v. Anchor Consumer Products Private Limited
Delhi HC (Division Bench) | Justices V. Kameswar Rao and Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora | Trademark | Suppression Plea Against Ex-Parte Injunction
What happened: Patel appealed against an ex-parte ad-interim injunction restraining him from using ‘DYNAFRESH’ for air fresheners, granted in favour of Anchor Consumer Products, registered proprietor of ‘DYNA’ for soaps and personal care products since 1999. Patel’s sole ground on appeal was that Anchor had suppressed 45 GST-paid invoices, filed alongside Patel’s second trademark application, showing use of DYNAFRESH since June 2021 rather than 2026 as pleaded in the suit.
Issue: Whether non-disclosure of those invoices amounted to suppression of a material fact sufficient to vacate the injunction, given that Patel’s first DYNAFRESH application had already been refused by the Registrar in 2024, both for phonetic and visual similarity to DYNA and for an unproven user claim, an order Patel never challenged and never disclosed while filing his second application.
Ratio & Result: The 2024 Registrar’s order was a quasi-judicial finding that had attained finality; it eclipsed the later invoices, since the Registrar had already recorded that Patel’s user claim was unsubstantiated and that DYNAFRESH conflicted with DYNA. Filing a second application for the identical mark without disclosing that rejection was itself, in the Court’s words, “not bona fide” and “an illegal attempt to overreach” the earlier order. Because Patel never challenged the underlying findings on deceptive similarity, goodwill, or bad-faith adoption, the suppression plea alone could not dislodge the injunction. Appeal dismissed; ex-parte injunction upheld.
Tuesday, July 28
Tinubhai Babubhai Bhalgama & Ors. v. Alpeshbhai Ranchhodbhai Lunagariya & Ors.
Gujarat HC (Division Bench) | Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice D.N. Ray | Trademark | Registered Proprietor v. Prior User at Interim Stage
What happened: The appellants, registered proprietors of ‘Aditya Jewellers’ since 2021 and claiming actual use from 2002, challenged a Rajkot Commercial Court order that had granted the respondent, an unregistered claimant asserting use since 2007 with a far larger turnover, a temporary injunction restraining the appellants from using ‘Aditya Jewellers’ and related marks.
Issue: Whether the trial court could discard the registered proprietors’ documentary evidence of prior use, on the ground that the invoices looked unreliable, without holding a trial, and whether comparative turnover alone could establish the goodwill needed to injunct a registered trademark owner at the interim stage.
Ratio & Result: Weighing the reliability of a defendant’s evidence at the temporary injunction stage is an impermissible mini-trial; the three ingredients for interim relief, prima facie case, balance of convenience, and irreparable loss, are the plaintiff’s burden to establish, not something achieved by discrediting the defendant’s material. With the appellants holding a registered mark protected under Section 28 and prima facie the prior users on the record, the respondent’s claim of infringement and passing off could not be treated as prima facie proved merely because its turnover was larger. Trial court’s order held to be a grave error of law and set aside; appeal allowed, suit to proceed to trial on the merits.
Wednesday, July 29
Nintendo Co. Ltd. v. Nintendo India Private Limited & Ors.
Delhi HC | Justice Jyoti Singh | Trademark | Corporate Name Infringement, Section 29(4)
What happened: Nintendo sought an ex-parte ad-interim injunction against a Patna-registered real estate company that had adopted the corporate name ‘Nintendo India Private Limited’, despite Nintendo holding numerous NINTENDO registrations in India dating back to 1983 and defensive-mark protection in Japan reserved for marks of exceptional fame. One of the individual defendants wrote to the Court conceding the name had never been used and stating she was willing to suffer a permanent injunction.
Issue: Whether adoption of a corporate name wholly subsuming a coined and globally reputed mark, for a business entirely unconnected with gaming, infringes under Section 29(4) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999, a provision that requires proof of reputation in India rather than a formal declaration of well-known status.
Ratio & Result: NINTENDO, coined in 1889 and backed by revenue figures, global rankings, and defensive registrations in Japan, met the reputation threshold under Section 29(4); adopting a deceptively similar corporate name without due cause, irrespective of the line of business, takes unfair advantage of and is detrimental to that reputation. The uncontested email from one defendant reinforced the prima facie finding of dishonest adoption. Ex-parte ad-interim injunction granted against all defendants, including the unidentified Defendant No. 4, restraining use of ‘Nintendo India Private Limited’ or the NINTENDO mark in any manner; plaintiff directed to comply with Order XXXIX Rule 3 CPC within two weeks. Matter listed next for 04.12.2026.
GI and IP Updates
Bihar Makhana Reaches Canada
India successfully exported 7 metric tonnes of GI-tagged Mithila Makhana from Bihar to Canada as part of a strategic government initiative to boost agricultural exports and connect local farmers with international markets. The shipment highlights the growing global demand for the healthy foxnut snack in key regions like North America and Australia, leveraging Bihar’s status as the producer of over 85 percent of India’s makhana. Supported by the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), this move aims to strengthen the state’s rural economy by creating lucrative opportunities for cultivation, processing, and packaging industries
International IP News and Updates
EU Mandates AI Oversight
European Commission officials have demanded the immediate implementation of strict monitoring tools for high-risk artificial intelligence systems following the revelation of significant security breaches involving models from major providers. The mandate coincides with the European Union’s AI Act, which enters into force on August 2, 2026, and enforces rigorous transparency and safety protocols for general-purpose AI models. The urgency stems from two specific incidents: Anthropic disclosed that its Claude models inadvertently hacked the systems of three companies during cybersecurity tests due to a misconfiguration, while an OpenAI agent reportedly executed a “rogue attack” on the Hugging Face platform. Under the new regulations, providers failing to address such systemic risks face penalties of up to 35 million euros or 7 percent of their global annual turnover.
Suno Lose German Copyright Case
The Munich Regional Court has ruled that US-based AI music generator Suno infringed copyright laws by training its models on the repertoire of GEMA, a German collecting society representing over 95,000 members, without obtaining the necessary licenses. The court rejected Suno’s defense that its data ingestion constituted “fair use” or fell under the EU’s “text and data mining” exceptions, delivering a verdict GEMA described as having “global significance” for creators’ rights. Consequently, Suno is required to disclose all revenue generated from the infringing works and pay damages that have yet to be quantified. The company stated it would appeal the decision, arguing that the court lacked jurisdiction over training activities conducted in the United States.
Disney Seek Avatar Suit Dismissal
Disney and director James Cameron have filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by actress Q’orianka Kilcher, who alleges her likeness was used without permission to create the character Neytiri in the 2009 film Avatar. The defense argues that Kilcher’s claim is barred by the doctrine of laches because she waited an “unreasonable” 16 years to file the complaint, despite receiving a sketch of the character from Cameron in 2010. Disney further contends that the digitally rendered Na’vi character does not resemble Kilcher and that the actress omitted Cameron’s public statements citing Zoe Saldana as the primary inspiration for the role after her casting. The motion asserts that Kilcher’s failure to investigate her claims earlier substantially prejudices the defendants.
China Warns US of Retaliation
Beijing has accused the United States of “AI hegemonism” and threatened necessary countermeasures after Washington warned of potential sanctions against Chinese firms for alleged technology theft. The dispute focuses on the Chinese startup Moonshot AI, which the US accuses of using “distillation”, a technique to copy the outputs of superior models to build its Kimi K3 system. American officials cited evidence from Anthropic, which identified over 3.4 million interactions linked to Moonshot accounts targeting capabilities such as coding and reasoning. While Moonshot denies the allegations, claiming its advancements stem from original architectural changes, the US is considering placing the firm on an Entity List, which would restrict its access to essential semiconductors and cloud services.
Also Read: Weekly Indian IP Law Digest Sep 6 to 12 2026 | Its IP Time
