TRADEMARK
BOMBAY HC GRANTS INTERIM RELIEF TO BURGER KING
The Bombay HC granted Burger King an ad-interim order on Monday,
prohibiting a Pune food joint from using the trademark 'Burger
King' until further notice. The court will review Burger
King's appeal on 06th September 2024. Earlier, a Pune court had
allowed the Pune eatery to use the trademark 'Burger King'
and dismissed Burger King's request for a permanent injunction
and damages of 20 lakhs rupees.
Burger King's counsel, Hiren Kamod, noted that an interim
injunction had been in place since January 2012, but the Pune food
joint resumed using the trademark following the District
Court's decision. The HC will examine the trial court's
final judgment and decide on Burger King's request for a stay
on the Pune court's order after further review.
TRADEMARK
DELHI HC DECLARED BOROLINE AS 'WELL KNOWN TM'
The Delhi HC has recognized "Boroline" as a well-known
trademark under the Trade Marks Act, noting its status as a
household name and one of the oldest trademarks, having been in use
since before India's independence. The court ordered the
Registrar of Trademarks to add "Boroline" to the list of
well-known trademarks once G. D. Pharmaceuticals completes the
necessary formalities.
The court issued a permanent injunction against Cento Products,
prohibiting them from manufacturing, selling, or advertising
products under the name "Borobeauty," which was deemed
deceptively similar to "Boroline." Additionally, the
Court instructed Cento Products to change their trade dress and
trademark to ensure they are distinct from Boroline's, and to
avoid the use of a dark green color and the prefix
"Boro."
The court also directed Cento Products to pay Rs. 2 lakhs in costs
to Boroline due to the prolonged nature of the lawsuit.
COPYRIGHT
OPENAI DEFENDS AI TRAINING PRACTICES
OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed AI startup, has responded to
allegations that it improperly trained its artificial intelligence
language models to use the copyrighted works of authors such as
Michael Chabon, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and comedian Sarah
Silverman.
Copyright owners, including writers, news outlets, and music
publishers, have filed several high-stakes lawsuits against tech
companies over the alleged exploitation of their work, without
permission in order to train text-based generative AI systems. The
above group of authors also filed separate lawsuits against Meta
Platforms META.O and Microsoft-backed MSFT.O OpenAI over their
systems last year.
OpenAI argues that it employs fair use of copyrighted material to
create new, original content with its chatbot ChatGPT. Meta and
OpenAI have both convinced judges to dismiss some of the claims,
though courts have not yet addressed the core question of whether
the use of material scraped from the internet to train AI infringes
copyrights on a massive scale.
COPYRIGHT
DELHI HC ORDERS IN FAVOUR OF LOUIS VUITTON
Recently, the Delhi HC ordered Rs. 5 lakhs as costs in favour of the famous French luxury brand Louis Vuitton in its suit against a website for the use of its photographs without authorization. The court's order not only imposes a financial penalty on the website owner but also mandates the removal of all infringing Louis Vuitton content. Interestingly, the court clarified that the website can continue selling pre-owned Louis Vuitton products as long as it explicitly states on its website that these are "authentic pre-owned goods" belonging to Louis Vuitton. It said that the website in question shall not deal in the new products of Louis Vuitton, except, with the latter's written agreement or permission.
PATENT
DELHI TEREX PRT LTD. V/s. CDE ASIA LTD & ANR
Terex India filed an appeal against the order passed by the Deputy Controller of Patent and Designs, challenging the validity of Indian Patent No. 307249 held by CDE Asia Ltd. Terex contested the patent, concerning a system for material classification, on the grounds of prior knowledge and inadequate disclosures. The Calcutta HC found the Deputy Controller's order lacked proper reasoning and failed to consider the Opposition Board's recommendations. Criticizing the order as mechanical and arbitrary, the court remanded the case to a different officer to ensure fairness and fresh consideration of the arguments.
(1) Terex India Private Limited Versus CDE Asia Ltd. & Anr. IPDAID 4 of 2024.
MISCELLANEOUS
ZEE ENTERTAINMENT & SONY SETTLE FAILED MERGER DISPUTE
Indian media giants, Zee Entertainment Enterprises and Sony
Pictures Networks (operating under Culver Max Entertainment Pvt.
Ltd.) have reached a mutual settlement regarding their
merger-related dispute.
Each of them has agreed to withdraw all claims, counterclaims, and
legal actions, including arbitration at the Singapore International
Arbitration Centre (SIAC) and proceedings before the National
Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). The merger, valued at around $10
billion and announced on December 22, 2021, was called off by Sony
on January 22, 2024, due to Zee's failure to meet financial
requirements and disagreements over the merged entity's
leadership. The settlement will see both companies cancel their
claims for termination fees and damages, terminate the Composite
Schemes of Arrangement filed with the NCLT, and notify relevant
regulatory bodies, thus closing any remaining liabilities.
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