Pantaloon Retail India Limited losses the Domain Name <pantaloons.com> in an administrative action with WIPO.
WIPO panelist Desmond J. Ryan AM denied the complaint filed by the complainant for the domain name <pantaloons.com> alleging infringement of their mark Pantaloon by RareNames
The Panelist observed that the Complainant undoubtedly had trademark rights in the name ‘Pantaloons’ for garments category in India but has failed to demonstrate any use or rights to the mark ‘Pantaloons’ outside India including United States of America where the Respondent is based. He further noted that the complainant’s mark is not known in the US market at all and there has been no evidence filed by the complainant to that effect.
The Panel also upholds the respondent’s contention that the word ‘Pantaloon’ is a dictionary word and is descriptive of garments. Furthermore, the Respondent has never offered the Domain for Sale targeted to the complainant or its competitor exclusively. He submitted that he is in business of acquiring and registering the generic and descriptive domain names.
The Respondent further submitted that he acquired knowledge of the complainant’s trade mark rights only after receiving the notice of the administrative proceedings from WIPO.
The Panel found that the Domain <pantaloons.com> is identical and confusingly similar to the complainant’s mark Pantaloon but the other two conditions of the UDRP Policy relating to Respondent’s Rights and Legitimate Interest and bad faith registration are not satisfied for which the complaint is denied by the panel.
The complete copy of the decision can be read here.
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The Trademark (Amendment) Rules, 2010 Notified
The Ministry of Commerce & Industry (Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion) notified The Trademark (Amendment) Rules, 2010 on May, 20, 2010.
The Amendment is made effective with respect to the Rule 62 sub rule 3 of the Trade Mark Rules, 2002 making it easy for the Registered Proprietor of the Trade Mark to get the duplicate or copy of the Trade Marks Certificate if not received by them at the first instance. The Registrar of Trade Marks, if satisfied, shall issue such copy without a payment of fee to the Registered Proprietor provided the request is received by the Registrar under Rule 62(3) before the expiry of the time limit for the renewal of the Registration or restoration of the Trade Mark.
The Second Amendment is made with respect to the classification of Services under the Fourth Schedule of the Rules. The services classified under class 42 has now been notified to be substituted as below
Class 42. Scientific and technological services and research and design relating thereto; industrial analysis and research services; design and development of computer hardware and software.
Class 43. Services for providing food and drink; temporary accommodation.
Class 44. Medical services, veterinary services, hygienic and beauty care for human beings or animals; agriculture, horticulture and forestry services.
Class 45. Legal services; security services for the protection of property and individuals; personal and social services rendered by others to meet the needs of individuals
The official copy of the notification can be downloaded here.
World Intellectual Property (IP) Day 2010 – Innovation: Linking the World
We are celebrating 10 years of World IP Day this year and the theme set by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is “Innovation: Linking The World”
We have seen lot of technological innovations this decade starting from shifting the mode we communicate with the world through emails to social networking and micro-blogging websites like Facebook and Twitter.
The innovative technologies helped us to reach the person sitting across the globe within seconds and helped the businesses to transform their global reach by marketing their products & services in any part of the world. The paradigm shift has been possible by the innovative technologies and the web. Though it has helped the businesses to go global, the new technologies have been a serious worry for the Intellectual Property (IP) Owners.
This decade had seen issues arising from Trademark abuse using keyword marketing, cyber-squatting, user name squatting to Copyright infringements due the very free nature of the Internet. However, it has also helped the business houses and the individuals to reach to their targeted audience from one part of the world. The technological innovations has helped us to link to the thousands of like minded peers and adding value to the economical and intellectual pool of the nations.
The courts in different countries also found hard to resolve the issues relating to jurisdiction and cause of action in the matters relating to Intellectual Property and the Internet. There has been lot of discrepancies in the enforcement of judgments and orders delivered by the courts in different jurisdictions making it hard to nab the pirators. However, recent trends have shown the courts in some jurisdictions have used the innovative technologies like FaceBook and Twitter to serve the respondents and the debtors.
Authored By : Gurpreet Singh, Internet Lawyer, New Delhi, India
World Intellectual Property (IP) Day 2010 – Innovation: Linking the World by Gurpreet Singh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Question on World IP Day, 2010 – By Sania
Q. I am a photographer by profession and usually display my work through social networking websites like flickr and blogs. Recently a noted publication picked my work and publish the same in their column without taking any license from me. What remedies do I have against the publisher and the social networking websites, from where the said work has been taken?
A. If your work is original or you are the right owner of the Copyright in a work that was subject matter of infringement, or plagiarism, you can take Civil as well Criminal Action against the publisher and also claim the damages from them to use your work without obtaining proper license from you. However, you do not have any remedy against the intermediary or the social networking websites where you uploaded the work such as flickr or blogs, since you have explicitly granted in non-exclusive license to the social networking websites to redistribute your work to the other users. You should properly read the terms of service and other website policies before uploading or sharing your original / copyrighted work on such Websites. Once you upload or share the work with these website you are in explicit agreement with such websites and grant them World Wide non-exclusive and non-royalty based license to use your work in different forms. (By Gurpreet Singh & Maninder Walia)
If you have issues or queries relating to Intellectual Property or Internet Laws, Please Contact us at contact@cipfo.org