Articles

The article discusses the recent Delhi High Court Division Bench decision which has held that procedural infirmities, which have no impact on the eligibility of the Applicant to apply for a plant variety application or on the eligibility of the application for registration, are not fatal to the registration, unless such infirmities are due to willful misrepresentation or to gain any undue advantage.

19 April 2024

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has on 15 March 2024 issued an advisory on use and deployment of artificial intelligence tools. The advisory subsumes a previous advisory dated 1 March 2024 on this subject. As part of the now expanded diligence requirements as per new advisory, the article elaborately discusses what the new advisory now requires the intermediaries to ensure.

1 April 2024

This article intends to discuss different methodologies for comparing the export prices with the domestic selling prices in the chosen investigation period, as prescribed under the WTO’s Anti-dumping Agreement and the practices followed in India, the United States of America and the European Union for this purpose. Elaborately discussing the three methodologies, with descriptive illustrations, etc., the author points out that the dumping margins are not the same.

29 March 2024

The article discusses few recent changes which one needs to know under Customs and Foreign Trade Policy. The Ministry of Commerce has extended the RoDTEP benefit to Advance Authorisation holders, Export Oriented Units and units in Special Economic Zone, and has relaxed the mandatory Quality Control Order compliance for import of inputs under Advance Authorisation and by EOU, for use in exports.

28 March 2024

The article highlights that one needs to examine whether sports marketing is in the nature of ‘advertisement/sale of advertising space and time service’ or ‘sponsorship service’. According to the authors, considering the overlapping nature of advertisement and sponsorship services, taxing advertisement under forward charge and allowing full ITC of the expenses, while taxing sponsorship under reverse charge and disallowing credit of GST, is creating an artificial discrimination.

27 March 2024

This article seeks to analyze the applicability of the non-discrimination article in tax treaties on disallowance of expenses on payment made to non-residents without withholding the applicable taxes. Decoding the legal position, the authors delve into the litigation trends and ponder over the question as to whether Section 40(a)(i) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 in its present form is violative of non-discrimination Article in tax treaty.

21 March 2024

One of the permissible ways of amendments to claims and/or specification is to incorporate suitable disclaimers during the patent prosecution and at the post grant stage. The article aims to bring down the perspectives of the use of disclaimers as a provision to amend claims and/or specification. It focusses on provisions available under Section 59 of the Patents Act, 1970 and a glimpse on such provisions in major jurisdictions such as US and EU that are of greater interest.

15 March 2024

The article dives deep into the understanding of certain key actors engaged in the processing of personal data – Data Fiduciaries and Data Processors. Observing that while Fiduciaries, by their nature, are expected to exercise decisional control over the purposes and means of processing, and Processors act on the former’s instructions, the article outline various complex situations where the roles blur.

4 March 2024

This article intends to provide an overview of some of the key issues for negotiation at MC 13 and the importance of these issues for WTO Members. It talks about Agreement on Investment Facilitation and Development, Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, Permanent Solution for Public Stockholding for Food Security Purposes, WTO Dispute Settlement Reform, and Electronic Commerce.

1 March 2024

The article discusses the observation of the Supreme Court in Northern Operating Systems case, recent investigations on the issue, CBIC Instruction, interim orders passed by different High Courts on factual matrix of the cases, legal position under the GST law and the way forward. Elaborating on the test / factors to determine the employee-employer relationship, the article deliberates on application of said tests/factors on the Supreme Court decision, and the factual differentiation of case.

29 February 2024

The article discusses the recent decision of Single Judge of the Delhi High Court adjudicating a batch of suits filed by Pharmacyclics LLC and Johnson and Johnson Pvt. Ltd., pertaining to the infringement of Indian Patent 262968 against Hetero Labs, Natco Pharma, BDR Pharma, Alkem Labs and Shilpa Medicare for manufacturing and marketing Ibrutinib. The Court restrained the Defendants in all suits from manufacturing and marketing Ibrutinib, pending final disposal of the suits.

28 February 2024

The article discusses the recent judgment of the Delhi High Court in the case of MakeMyTrip India Pvt. Ltd, Booking Netherlands & Booking India and Google LLC in which the court reiterated that use of trademark as key words of search engines displays of someone else advertisement, absent any confusion or unfair advantage, would not infringe the trademark.

27 February 2024

The Article discusses the recent decision by the Delhi Appellate Tribunal in the case of Prism Scan Express Pvt Limited v. DCIT . The decision provided a wakeup call to all those who were under the belief that their old trades would not come under the glare of Benami Law, taking shelter of the decision of the Apex Court in the case of Ganpati Dealcom Pvt Ltd v. UoI which held that the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amendment Act, 2016 shall not apply retrospectively.

19 February 2024

A recent order passed by the Delhi High Court in favour of DPKA Universal Consumer Venture, rejecting the plea of interim injunction by Lotus Herbals against the former’s use of ‘Lotus Splash’, has garnered a lot of attention. The decision discusses the question of infringement, with specific reference to Section 30(2)(a) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999. The article discusses this interim order and analyses the jurisprudence on Section 30(2)(a).

15 February 2024

There are two discernible facets when a celebrity wants to protect their personality rights: first, the right to protect one’s image from being commercially exploited without permission by treating it as a tort of passing off and second, the right to privacy which entails one’s right to be left alone. Analysing jurisprudential development in US and UK, the article elaborately summarises many case law governing jurisprudence in India on IP laws.

15 February 2024