Indian Courts
Monday, 6th July, 2026
Intra Cellular Therapies Inc v The Controller of Patents
Delhi High Court | Patents | Novelty and Therapeutic Efficacy
What happened: Intra Cellular Therapies appealed a 2023 order rejecting its patent application for deuterated heterocycle fused gamma carbolines, compounds aimed at psychiatric conditions including schizophrenia and anxiety through action on 5-HT2A receptors and dopamine pathways. The Controller had refused the application for lack of novelty among other grounds, and the appellant tried to save it by pointing to the compounds’ improved bioavailability compared to known versions.
Issue: Whether showing that a deuterated compound has better bioavailability is, by itself, enough to demonstrate the kind of enhanced therapeutic efficacy that can rescue a novelty objection.
Ratio and Result: Justice Tushar Rao Gedela was not persuaded. The court held that bioavailability and therapeutic efficacy are not the same thing, and that an applicant relying on improved absorption has to back it up with research data actually connecting that improvement to a real clinical benefit, not just assert the link. Since the novelty objection alone was enough to sink the application, the bench did not think it necessary to also work through the separate question of inventive step. The 2023 refusal was upheld in full and the appeal dismissed with no order as to costs.
Deepak Nitrite Limited v The Assistant Controller General of Patents and Designs
Bombay High Court | Patents | Common General Knowledge and Reasoned Orders
What happened: Deepak Nitrite’s application for a free flowing food grade sodium nitrite and its production method was refused in 2023 on a single, fairly thin, ground. The Controller said reduced impurity in the product could not be inventive because it is common general knowledge that no compound is ever completely pure, without citing where that knowledge supposedly comes from or when it became common.
Issue: Whether the Controller can lean on common general knowledge as a reason to refuse a patent without identifying any source for it or showing that it predates the application’s priority date.
Ratio and Result: Justice Arif S Doctor set the refusal aside in blunt terms, calling a bald assertion of common general knowledge without an identifiable source not just impermissible but arbitrary and contrary to natural justice, and pointing to the Delhi High Court’s earlier reasoning in AGFA NV v Assistant Controller of Patents and Designs on the same point. What makes this order worth reading beyond the individual case is that the bench went out of its way to flag a pattern across several recent Patent Office decisions, including Amogreentech, Navya Network and JFE Steel, all suffering from the same kind of unsupported reasoning. As the judge put it, the problem is not that departmental standards do not exist, it is that they keep not getting applied. Readers who want the fuller picture on how patent refusals are supposed to be reasoned should look at our earlier post on what happens when the Patent Office ignores a reply, which covers much the same ground from a different angle. The application was remanded to a different Controller for fresh consideration within twelve weeks.
Read full case here: Deepak Nitrite Patent case
John Cockerill Hamon SA v Hamon Cooling Systems Private Limited and Anr
Bombay High Court | Trademarks | Assignment, Passing Off
What happened: John Cockerill Hamon SA acquired the HAMON trademark portfolio in 2022 through a Belgian bankruptcy sale that also gave certain former Hamon group companies a temporary right to keep using the HAMON name purely to wind down existing projects. Hamon Cooling Systems, once part of that group but sold off to new owners the same year, kept using HAMON COOLING and HCS HAMON COOLING well after that temporary window closed, and even filed its own trademark applications for those composite marks on a proposed to be used basis in 2022 and again in 2024.
Issue: Whether a company whose historical use of a mark traces back to the original owner’s consent can turn around and resist an infringement claim from that owner’s successor by claiming an independent right built up through its own long use.
Ratio and Result: Justice Arif S Doctor granted the interim injunction, finding that the plaintiff had made out a clear chain of title through the assignment documents and that Hamon Cooling’s own pleadings admitted its use had always rested on HCI’s consent, a fact fatal to any claim of independent adoption under Section 34. The judgment also noted that a party claiming continuous use since 1999 does not usually file a proposed to be used application a quarter century later, and treated those 2022 and 2024 filings as themselves evidence of dishonest intent. The acquiescence defence failed for want of any positive act by the plaintiff encouraging the disputed use, and the court added, almost as an aside, that shielding public sector clients from confusion about who they are actually contracting with mattered too.
Read our full case analysis here: Hamon Trademark case
Imagine Marketing Pvt Ltd v Exotic Mile
Delhi High Court | Trademarks | Second Injunction Application
What happened: Imagine Marketing, the owner of the BOAT and boAt marks, went back to the Delhi High Court seeking a fresh interim injunction against Exotic Mile over the wordmark BOULT. The company’s first injunction application in 2019 had produced an order restraining only certain device marks and the tagline UNPLUG YOURSELF, not the bare word BOULT itself. A Division Bench later affirmed that limited order and noted, almost in passing, that the wordmark had never actually been restrained. Imagine Marketing treated that observation as an opening and filed again, arguing the earlier omission was inadvertent.
Issue: Whether a plaintiff can bring a second injunction application for relief that was effectively declined the first time, without pointing to any changed circumstances or undue hardship.
Ratio and Result: Justice Jyoti Singh dismissed the application. Relying on Rakesh Madan v Rajasthan Financial Corporation, the court held that a second injunction bid on the same facts is only maintainable where the plaintiff pleads and proves changed circumstances or undue hardship, and that a mere oversight in a six year old order is neither. The judge found nothing ambiguous in the 2020 order and treated the plaintiff’s own decision to withdraw an earlier clarification application, filed and then abandoned before this fresh attempt, as telling. Our earlier article on what actually counts as deceptive similarity covers the phonetic test the courts used against Exotic Mile back when the device marks were first restrained, and it is worth revisiting now that the wordmark fight has ended this way.
Columbia Pictures Industries Inc v Registrar of Trade Marks and Anr
Delhi High Court | Trademarks | Well Known Marks
What happened: Columbia Pictures opposed an application to register GHOST BUSTER for pharmaceutical and sanitary goods in Class 5, relying on its own GHOSTBUSTERS registrations which sit in entirely different classes covering merchandise, apparel and entertainment services. The Registrar dismissed the opposition, reasoning that since Columbia held no registration or evidence of use in Class 5, the goods were simply too dissimilar to matter.
Issue: Whether a proprietor must first obtain a formal declaration that its mark is well known, either from a court or under Rule 124 of the Trade Marks Rules, before it can invoke Section 11(2) to block registration of a similar mark for unrelated goods.
Ratio and Result: Justice Jyoti Singh held that no such prerequisite exists. Section 11(2) only requires the earlier mark to be well known in India, and the Registrar is fully equipped to assess that during opposition proceedings itself by weighing the statutory factors under Sections 11(6) and 11(7), things like duration of use, promotion, and public recognition. The order noted that the Registrar had gone straight to comparing goods without ever engaging with Columbia’s reputation evidence or its allegation that GHOST BUSTER had been adopted in bad faith after a similar US application was abandoned. The refusal was set aside and the matter sent back for reconsideration within three months, with the court careful to add that it had not itself ruled on whether GHOSTBUSTERS is well known.
Keshan Infotech Pvt Ltd v. Oliver Brandt & Ors.
Madras High Court | Copyright | AI Training Data
What happened: Keshan Infotech, which runs the travel site travelandtourworld.com, alleged that an Italian editor was systematically scraping its travel content and republishing it on social media while masking original authorship. It sought injunctions covering not just reproduction but also use of its content as training data or prompts for AI models and LLMs.
Issue: Whether unauthorised scraping of proprietary web content for use as AI/LLM training data or prompts makes out a prima facie case of copyright infringement warranting urgent interim relief.
Ratio and result: Justice K. Kumaresh Babu held that such use does raise a prima facie infringement case warranting immediate judicial intervention, and granted all four injunctions sought (against reproduction, translation, summarisation/paraphrasing, and use as AI/LLM training data) for four weeks, with notice returnable in four weeks. Order dated 1 July, reported this week.
Bristol Bakery v. Grupo Bimbo S.A.B. DE C.V & Ors.
Bombay High Court | Trademarks | Acquiescence, Trans-border Reputation
What happened: Mumbai’s Bristol Bakery (using “Bimbo” since 1979) and Mexican food giant Grupo Bimbo (in India since 2017 via a joint venture, later acquiring Modern Food and Kitty Bread) both sought interim injunctions against each other’s use of “BIMBO,” each alleging infringement and passing off by the other.
Issue: Whether either party could get interim relief against the other’s long-standing, mutually-known use of the same mark, given the delay in approaching the court.
Ratio and result: Justice Sharmila U. Deshmukh refused interim relief to both sides, holding that each had acquiesced in the other’s use for years before suing, and that balance of convenience favoured leaving their long coexistence undisturbed pending trial. Bristol Bakery also failed to substantiate its sales figures for a passing-off claim; Grupo Bimbo failed to show trans-border reputation predating Bristol Bakery’s 1979 adoption.
Tuesday, 7th July, 2026
Atyati Technologies Private Limited v. Cognizant Technology Solutions U.S. Corporation & Anr.
Bombay High Court | Copyright | Reverse Passing-Off
What happened: Fintech company Atyati alleged that Cognizant’s blue hexagonal logo, adopted in its 2023 rebrand, copied Atyati’s own orange hexagonal “honeycomb” logo used since 2019. Cognizant countered with design agreements, time-entry records, and market survey reports to show independent creation.
Issue: Whether Atyati made out a case for interim relief on copyright infringement, passing off, or reverse passing-off, given Cognizant’s evidence of independent design and the geographic separation between the two design teams.
Ratio and result: Justice Sharmila U. Deshmukh dismissed the interim application, finding Cognizant had prima facie shown independent creation and that Atyati hadn’t shown a reasonable opportunity for Cognizant’s US-based designers to have accessed its logo. Notably, the court held reverse passing-off is maintainable under Indian law, explicitly disagreeing with a contrary Delhi High Court view in Western Digital v. Geonix, but still denied relief since Atyati failed to show standalone goodwill in the logo apart from its “ATYATI” word mark.
Read our full case analysis here: Atyati v. Cognizant Copyright Case
Wednesday, 8th July, 2026
Crocs Inc USA v Bata India Ltd and Ors
Delhi High Court | Design Law and Costs | Recovery of Litigation Costs
What happened: Crocs had sued Bata back in 2014 over the clog shaped design it once held, but the underlying registration was cancelled by the Deputy Controller for lack of novelty while the suit was still pending, and the case was eventually disposed of in 2023 without the order saying anything about costs one way or the other. Bata then applied for recovery of the litigation expenses it had run up defending the matter across the trial court, the High Court, a Division Bench, and even a trip to the Supreme Court.
Issue: Whether silence on costs in the order that finally disposes of a suit amounts to a waiver of the winning party’s right to claim them later.
Ratio and Result: Justice Prathiba M Singh held it does not. Applying the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Uflex Ltd v Government of Tamil Nadu that successful parties in commercial litigation should ordinarily be made whole, the court found that Crocs never actually disputed the ₹24.63 lakh figure Bata put forward, only the principle of paying it at all. Crocs was directed to pay that amount within three months, after which Bata’s pending execution proceedings for the same recovery would stand closed.
Read the full case analysis here: Crocs v Bata Costs Order in Designs Case
Thursday, 9th July, 2026
Dawn Pictures Private Limited v. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited & Anr.
Madras High Court | Copyright | Dynamic Blocking
What happened: Dawn Pictures, producer of the Tamil film “Idhayam Murali” (released 10 July), sought orders against ISPs and cable operators to block pirated versions of the film ahead of release, including mirror and proxy sites, and to restrain named cable operators from unauthorised transmission.
Issue: Whether ad-interim injunctions blocking apprehended online and cable piracy are warranted ahead of a film’s theatrical release, and on what conditions.
Ratio and result: Justice K. Kumaresh Babu granted both applications for four weeks, holding that irreversible injury is likely absent an order preventing unlawful broadcast. Since the relief was expansive enough to affect third-party business interests, the court conditioned the injunction on Dawn Pictures indemnifying affected respondents.
Friday, 10th July, 2026
Landmark Crafts Limited v. Shalini Garg Proprietor of Shree Mange Ram and Sons
Delhi High Court | Trademarks | Deceptive Similarity in Fasteners
What happened: Landmark Crafts, which has used “HP” (for “Honour and Pride”) since 1995 for self-drilling screws and fasteners, sued a fastener seller who had applied to register “ISI HP” for similar goods, arguing the defendant was using “ISI” (a BIS certification reference) as a prefix to piggyback on its “HP” reputation with clients like DMRC and GAIL.
Issue: Whether prefixing a certification-related term (“ISI”) to a registered mark (“HP”) creates a deceptively similar mark likely to cause confusion, rather than a genuinely distinct one.
Ratio and result: Justice Jyoti Singh granted an ex parte ad interim injunction, holding “ISI HP” was prima facie deceptively similar to the registered “HP” mark and used for identical goods and trade channels. The court found the defendant was attempting to misrepresent an association with Landmark Crafts to encash on its goodwill, and restrained further use of the mark until the next hearing.
Read our full case analysis here: Landmark Crafts v. Shalini Garg
Zippy Edible Food Products Private Limited v. Veer Ji Foods Private Limited & Ors.
Delhi High Court | Intellectual Property Rights | Passing Off, Misrepresentation
What happened: Zippy Edible Food Products filed a lawsuit against the restaurant chain Veer Ji Malai Chaap. The defendants published promotional videos featuring actor Vindu Dara Singh at Zippy’s manufacturing plant. The videos falsely portrayed Zippy’s automated machinery, hygiene standards, and patented processes as Veer Ji’s own facility. Veer Ji had stopped sourcing products from Zippy but continued using the footage to promote their food items.
Issue: Whether the defendants’ use of the plaintiff’s factory footage constitutes passing off and misrepresentation that misleads the public.
Ratio and result: The Court ruled that using a third party’s advanced facility footage to market one’s own products creates a false impression of quality and origin. Justice Jyoti Singh granted an ad-interim injunction, ordering the defendants to remove the deceptive videos from all platforms within 24 hours. Social media platforms like YouTube and Meta were directed to take down the links within 36 hours if the defendants failed to comply.
GI and Other IP Updates
Madhya Pradesh Tops India In New GI Registrations For The Year
India added 125 new geographical indications this financial year, pushing the total past 800 registered products nationwide. Madhya Pradesh came out on top with 26 individual registrations, covering items like Khajuraho stone craft and Betul Bharewa metal craft, followed by West Bengal with 24 new tags including Jalbhara Sandesh and Banglar Nolen Gur. Himachal Pradesh and Jharkhand rounded out the top four. Handicrafts made up just over half of all registrations this year, with agricultural products accounting for close to a third, a split that says something about where India’s GI machinery is actually putting its energy.
Trademark Registry Rolls Out Mandatory Online KYC For Agents
The Trademark Registry has issued a notice requiring registered trademark attorneys and agents to complete an online identity verification process, with a one month window from the date of the notice to comply. Practitioners who miss the deadline risk disruption to their filings and case access on the portal, so anyone managing a live docket would do well to complete this promptly rather than treat it as routine paperwork.
Google Challenges Delhi High Court Order Over Hindware Ad Keywords
Google has filed an appeal running to nearly 4761 pages against a May ruling that found it liable for trademark infringement after Hindware’s rivals bought its brand name as a Google Ads keyword. The company argues the decision makes India an outlier among major jurisdictions and would hand trademark owners a monopoly over search advertising space at the expense of consumer choice, a framing that will sound familiar to anyone who followed our earlier breakdown of the underlying Hindware intermediary liability ruling when it first came out. The appeal is expected to be heard in the coming days.
NABARD Helps Secure GI Tags For 28 More Traditional Products
NABARD has facilitated GI registration for another 28 traditional products, taking the total number of GI tagged goods it has supported to 176 out of 538 products it has promoted through various partners. The latest batch spans handloom textiles, bamboo crafts, metalwork and musical instruments, including the Nalanda Bawanbuti saree from Bihar and Kuchai silk from Jharkhand. According to NABARD, its GI linked work has connected more than 13000 artisans to higher value markets and generated over 50000 direct jobs, numbers that make the case for treating GI registration as economic policy rather than a purely legal exercise.
Lahaul Spiti Sea Buckthorn Wins Its Own GI Tag
Sea buckthorn from Himachal Pradesh’s Lahaul Spiti district has received a geographical indication tag, giving the Himalayan superfood its own identity separate from the better known Ladakh variety. Locals are now pushing the government to supply hybrid saplings imported from Russia, since naturally growing plants bear smaller, thornier berries that make harvesting far more labour intensive. Farmers in the valley currently sell juice for seven hundred to a thousand rupees a litre, and the hope is that GI recognition will help authenticate genuine products, cut down on counterfeit sea buckthorn goods in the market, and eventually justify wider hybrid cultivation.
Uttar Pradesh Extends Its Lead As India’s Top State For GI Tags
Uttar Pradesh continues to hold the largest state tally of geographical indication tags in the country, with Varanasi alone accounting for roughly a third of the state’s total. The state’s One District One Product scheme has deliberately aligned itself with GI registration, giving legal protection and marketing support the same target list rather than running as separate initiatives, which is part of why the numbers keep climbing faster there than almost anywhere else.
India Signs Traditional Knowledge Database Access Pact With Australia
India and Australia signed an agreement during their annual summit in Melbourne giving IP Australia access to India’s Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, the CSIR run database used to stop patent offices around the world from granting patents over things already documented in Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, Sowa Rigpa and Yoga texts. Eighteen patent offices now have access under similar non disclosure arrangements, following a comparable agreement India struck with Brazil’s patent office back in February. The library has already contributed to more than 375 patent applications worldwide being revoked, rejected, amended or abandoned, which is a fairly concrete return on a database that started out as a defensive measure against biopiracy.
Also Read: Weekly Indian IP Law Digest: July 19 to July 25
International IP Cases and Updates
Apple Sues OpenAI Over Alleged Theft Of Hardware Trade Secrets
United States District Court, Northern District of California | July 10, 2026
What happened. Apple filed suit against OpenAI, its Chief Hardware Officer Tang Yew Tan, and former Apple engineer Chang Liu, accusing them of running a coordinated effort to obtain confidential Apple hardware information while OpenAI builds its first consumer device. The complaint alleges Liu kept a work laptop after leaving Apple and used an authentication bug to download dozens of confidential files, while Tan allegedly used Apple’s internal project codenames to recruit candidates and told them to bring actual Apple components to interviews for what the filing calls show and tell sessions.
Issue. Whether OpenAI’s hiring practices and product development crossed the line from ordinary competitive recruiting into a coordinated scheme to misappropriate a rival’s trade secrets.
Ratio and Result. As a freshly filed complaint, this has not been tested by any court yet. Apple is seeking a jury trial, an order barring OpenAI from using or disclosing the disputed information, return of its materials, and preservation of evidence for the litigation ahead. OpenAI has denied any interest in Apple’s trade secrets and says it remains focused on its own technology. Given that the two companies were partners on Apple Intelligence as recently as last year, this is as much a story about a broken alliance as it is about intellectual property law, and how the court eventually draws the line between poaching talent and stealing secrets will matter well beyond this one dispute.
US Appeals Court Sides With AstraZeneca In Tagrisso Patent Fight
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit | July 9, 2026
What happened. The Federal Circuit upheld a district court ruling that two Wyeth patents Pfizer had accused AstraZeneca’s lung cancer drug Tagrisso of infringing were invalid for lack of a valid written description. The case had a strange path to get here, a Delaware jury actually awarded Pfizer 107.5 million dollars in 2024, only for the trial judge to later throw that verdict out entirely.
Issue. Whether the asserted Wyeth patents contained a sufficient written description to support their claims, or whether they were invalid regardless of what a jury had found on infringement.
Ratio and Result. The appellate court agreed with the district judge that the patents lacked valid written descriptions, closing out a dispute that had briefly looked like a significant loss for AstraZeneca. Tagrisso brought in more than 7.2 billion dollars for the company last year, so the practical stakes here were always larger than the legal question suggests.
Sino Biopharmaceutical Licenses Respiratory Drug To AstraZeneca
Hong Kong and China | July 8, 2026
What happened. AstraZeneca agreed to pay Sino Biopharmaceutical’s subsidiary Chia Tai Tianqing 200 million dollars upfront for exclusive rights outside China to TQC3721, an experimental inhaled treatment for chronic respiratory disease, with total payments including milestones potentially reaching 1.9 billion dollars plus royalties. It is the second major out licensing deal Sino Biopharm has struck in 2026, after an earlier arrangement with Sanofi, and comes alongside a separate expanded commercial tie up with GSK for two of its existing respiratory brands in China.
Issue. This is a licensing transaction rather than a dispute, so there is no legal question to resolve, only a set of exclusive rights and royalty terms to note.
Ratio and Result. The deal hands AstraZeneca ex China development, manufacturing and commercialisation rights over TQC3721 while Sino Biopharm keeps the Chinese market and collects tiered double digit royalties on sales elsewhere. It fits a broader pattern of Chinese biopharma companies increasingly acting as the innovation source for licensing deals rather than merely local manufacturing partners, worth watching for what it signals about where new drug candidates are actually coming from.
Taylor Swift Wins Dismissal Of Poet’s Plagiarism Lawsuit
United States District Court, Southern District of Florida | July 6, 2026
What happened. A Florida poet named Kimberly Marasco, representing herself, had accused Taylor Swift of lifting phrases from her poetry collections for more than a dozen songs on The Tortured Poets Department, pointing to thematic overlaps like a poem about rain and Swift’s lyric about midnight rain.
Issue. Whether Marasco’s poems contained protectable expression that Swift plausibly copied, as opposed to shared themes or coincidental phrasing that copyright law simply does not reach.
Ratio and Result. Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case with prejudice, finding that Marasco’s poems did not contain protectable expression and that she had failed to plausibly plead actual copying in any event. The court noted Marasco’s own submissions described the alleged copying as paraphrase or minor word substitution, language that undercut her claim as much as anything Swift’s lawyers could have argued. It is a useful reminder that thematic similarity, two writers both touching on heartbreak or a rainy mood, was never going to be enough on its own, no matter how neatly the lines seemed to echo each other.
Denmark Joins EU Court Fight Over Publisher Payment Rules
Court of Justice of the European Union | July 6 to 7, 2026
What happened. Denmark’s government filed a written intervention and appeared at the oral hearing in a case where Google, Meta, Spotify, Sony and streaming platform Streamz are challenging how Belgium implemented Article 15 of the EU’s Digital Single Market Directive, the provision that gives press publishers a right to be paid when platforms reuse their content.
Issue. Whether Belgium’s domestic rules on publisher remuneration go further than what EU copyright law actually permits, and what that means for every other member state trying to enforce the same directive.
Ratio and Result. No ruling has come yet, this was only the oral hearing stage, with an advocate general’s opinion and a final judgment still to follow. Denmark’s decision to show up in person rather than simply file paperwork signals how seriously Copenhagen is taking the outcome, especially given its own publishers have already taken OpenAI to court over similar content use. Whichever way the Court of Justice eventually leans will effectively set the ceiling for how hard any EU government can push tech platforms to pay for news.
US Patent And Trademark Office Drops Board Of Peace Trademark Bids
United States Patent and Trademark Office | July 6, 2026
What happened. The USPTO formally abandoned two trademark applications it had filed on behalf of President Trump’s Board of Peace initiative, one for the plain phrase and one for a stylised logo featuring a shield, globe and laurel branches. The filings were dropped late on the eve of a federal holiday, months after Representative Jamie Raskin had publicly pressed USPTO Director John Squires over why a federal agency was filing trademark applications for a presidential initiative in the first place.
Issue. Whether it was appropriate for the USPTO itself to act as trademark applicant for a politically charged government initiative, and what that arrangement risked if the marks had actually proceeded to registration.
Ratio and Result. With the applications abandoned, the underlying legality question was never tested in court, but the political fallout was immediate. Raskin called the retreat a necessary course correction, arguing the USPTO never had legal footing to serve as a stand in trademark holder for the initiative in the first place. The episode is a fairly clean illustration of why trademark registration, ordinarily the driest corner of IP practice, can become a genuine flashpoint the moment it brushes up against political branding and public money.
