Instagram Opposes the Registration of Instagem Trademark

The widely known photo and video-sharing social networking platform, Instagram, has quite recently filed an opposition before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) against the Trademark Registration of the word INSTAGEM by Market Organization Inc. In its opposition filed, Instagram has claimed that the INSTAGEM trademark will cause a lot of consumer confusion and also damage the reputation of Instagram. The applicant, Market Organization, is willing to get the mark INSTAGEM registered in International Class 41 for ‘Video Editing.’

According to Instagram, its social media platform was launched in 2010, and since then, it has been consistently using the INSTAGRAM trademark in connection with its platform in the US. It also owns a variety of Trademark Applications and registrations for the mark INSTAGRAM covering several goods and services. Besides Instagram’s social networking platform, the trademark applications and registrations include –

1.     Providing use of online temporary non-downloadable software for allowing the transmission of images, audiovisual, and video content

2.     Both downloadable and non-downloadable computer software for modifying the appearance and allowing the transmission of images, audio-visual, and video content

Instagram has alleged that Market Organization’s services are quite similar to the ones it offers corresponding to the INSTAGRAM mark. Instagram is now opposing this trademark registration as it believes that the applicant’s proposed trademark is deceptively similar to the INSTAGRAM mark, and the same holds immense potential for creating confusion in the minds of the customers or users. According to Instagram, the customers might also end up thinking that the applicant is or has been connected or affiliated with Instagram. Another possibility lies in the customers believing that the applicant’s services provided under the proposed trademark have been authorized, sponsored, endorsed, or licensed by Instagram. Additionally, it has also stated that the INSTAGEM mark shall dilute the INSTAGRAM mark and cause great damage to its reputation.

All in all, Instagram wants the trademark registration of the INSTAGEM mark to get refused.

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Japan Seeks to Reinforce Intellectual Property for Fruits and Veggies

With the advent of the year 2020, there comes news that Japan is planning to strengthen Intellectual Property (IP) control over its premium products, like fruits and vegetables being sold overseas to prevent its high-end crops from being grown and then sold as the products of other countries.

As per Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (MAFF), the crops that have been influenced by the failure to appropriate implementation of IP control abroad include the high-end Shine Muscat grapes. It is a crop being produced by other nations such as Korea and China.

FoodNavigator-Asia, one of the leading online news sources for the food industry for near about 20 years, confirmed with MAFF that the proposed initiative for ministry to handle this situation is to appoint a private company to work on the Intellectual Property Protection of Japan’s newly cultivated fruits and vegetables.

MAFF officer, who opted to remain anonymous, emphasized that although it hasn’t yet been confirmed, the department is seeking at budgeting for such a company to help Japan secure new fruit and vegetable varieties. He added that discussion on this matter is on-going internally, but no official details are in place till now. This protection would likely be applied only to new produce varieties.

That said, if approved, such a move would bring good outcomes for the country’s agricultural industry, which is striving to boost up its high-end fruit and vegetable exports from the current estimated JPY1tn (US$9.2mn), as per Japan times.

Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries’s Intellectual Property Strategy 2020 report also lined up strengthening the IP protection of new plant varieties as a vital area of focus to uplift competitiveness of the nation’s seed and seedling industry.

MAFF, in the strategy report, said that it is crucial to establish an environment where breeders can easily obtain and use legal rights to promote the new and excellent plant varieties with international competitiveness both in Japan and abroad. Measures to strengthen IP protection was highlighted as a significant section of the report, with the ministry aiming to do so by both:

·         Providing support against any IP infringement

·         Developing technology and tools that can aid the IP-holders to prove their rights to ownership

MAFF added that it is essential to ensure that the right holders can confirm the IP violation overseas and take border measures promptly and appropriately. Besides these, several other efforts are being planned by Japan and MAFF. One out of them includes methods to identify the geographical area where a product is being produced and ways to conserve varieties for which new applications have been filed.

As part of the doings undertaken by MAFF Intellectual Property Consortium, which is known as Japan’s IP protection watchdog for its products’ overseas Trademark Applications, activities related to Geographical Indication ranked very high on the list, according to the consortium’s latest report.

Emphasizing GI, MAFF said that in Japan, many brand products have already obtained a remarkable reputation because of their unique production approaches and natural characteristics like regional climate and soil conditions. The GI Act helps the government to protect the name of such products.

He ended by saying that Japan works with a dedicated GI symbol to indicate protected products. Moreover, to achieve its aim, the nation has recently established a webpage on the online tax donation website Satofull. It is a site that allows people to donate their produces to preferred municipalities in situations of disaster. In return, they would be benefitted by having a large portion of total donation deducted from their taxes. For more visit: https://www.kashishipr.com/ 

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Delhi HC: Applicants Own Right to Know Reason for Trademark Application Rejection

The Delhi High Court (HC) recently has held that the trademark registrar is duty-bound to provide the applicant with the replica of an order passed under Section 18(5) of the Trademarks Act, 1999 comprising the ground for refusal/conditional acceptance in addition to the materials he used to reach the decision.

The Court has stated that Rule 36 of the Trademarks Rules, 2017 is unreasonable, arbitrary, and inconsistent with the Act insofar because it empowers the Registry to express the decision without including the grounds for refusal/conditional acceptance.

The ruling was passed by a Single-judge Bench of Justice JR Midha following a petition favored by the Intellectual Property Attorneys Association. The association had moved to the Court after being wronged by non-speaking orders passed by the registrar of trademarks while refusing applications for Trademark Registration.

It was asserted that such refusals were violating Section 18(5) of the Trademarks Act. Besides, it was argued that the terms mandated the registrar to maintain written records of the grounds for refusal or conditional acceptance along with the materials he used to arrive at his decision.

On the other side, Rule 36 of Trademarks Rules, 2017, states that the registrar shall provide the decision in writing to the applicant. Moreover, if the applicant wants to file an appeal for getting the grounds behind the decision, he might do so within 30 days in Form TM-M.

Hence, the association concluded and argued that as far as the supply of reasons behind the refusal was concerned, Rule 36 was in contravention of Section 18(5).

To finish after hearing the parties, the Court approved the petition made by the Intellectual Property Attorneys Association. It held that the trademarks registrar/administrator was duty-bound to provide the applicants (who file Trademark Applications) with the copy of the order passed under Section 18(5) to make them familiar with the reasons for refusal or conditional acceptance and the materials he deployed to come up with that decision.

The Court further clearly held that Rule 36 was arbitrary, unreasonable, and inconsistent with the Act. It agreed with the association and ordered that the petition is approved. It added that the registrar of the trademarks is directed to stringently implement Section 18(5) of the Trademarks Act by maintaining written records of grounds for refusal/conditional acceptance and also sending the same to the applicant within fourteen days of the passing of the order. ✅ For view-source: https://bit.ly/2ClGvLV

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Global Intellectual Property Filings: India Secures Tenth Position

With continuous growth in Intellectual Property (IP) filing activities worldwide, India has witnessed a remarkable upsurge in Industrial Design, patent, and trademark filings in the last year, i.e., 2018. Where on one side, the nation saw more than 20% hike in trademark filing, on the other side, it witnessed a rise of 13.6% in the industrial design applications. While global applications for obtaining the Patent Protection increased by 5.2 %, Indian patent filings grew to 7.5%. Furthermore, the number of pending applications in the country hit a reduction of 25% in 2018 as compared to 2017. All these statistics have brought India onto the top tenth (10th) position amongst 49 countries ranked on the basis of the total (abroad and resident) IP filing activities.

Who’s At the First Position?

With over 50% of the overall applications, including trademarks, patents, and designs, the most the global increase in the IP filings were made by China – as per World Intellectual Property Indicator of 2019. When compared with the year 2017’s IP filings, China received around 160,400 more applications in 2018. If considered globally, Trademark Applications calculated 14.3 million, up 15.5%, industrial design fillings amounted to 1.3 million, and patent ones representing a growth of 5.2% in comparison to figures of 2017 exceeded 3.3 million.

Who Stood Second?

Listed as the second rank nation – the US, unfortunately, witnessed a 1.6% fall in patent filings in 2018. Though the country’s trademark filing activity rose by 4.3%, yet fall in Patent Applications, which is the first decline the nation faced in the previous a decade is a point of worry.

As per Francis Gurry, the director-general of WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), Asia is persistently emerging as the global hub for IP filings.

Coming back to India, the count of domestic applications for patents in this nation is continually increasing. It jumped from 22% in 2013-14 to 34% in 2018-19. According to the data provided by DPIIT (Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade), the IP filings in the country have seen a notable rise in almost every sector, covering information technology (IT), science, and computer science. Moreover, startups, along with small and medium-sized enterprises, are also adding a lot in the IP fillings figures of India. For instance, IP applications by these industries saw a nearly 200% raise, and the numbers became 511 from 160 in 2016-17. In terms of patent filings related to the IT field, IT companies – Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) were ranked 1st and 2nd respectively, while Hike, the seven-year-old startup, stood at the third position.

Though Kavin Bharti The Mittal-led firm has been working in the field of R&D (research and development), including Natural Language Processing (NLP), Computer Vision, and Social Network Analysis, it has not yet uncovered reasons for filing 66 patents. Intended to incentivizes the employees with rewards and grants in addition to providing prospective patent filers with legal and market guidance, the company has recently launched a Hike Patent Program.

Undoubtedly, many other firms, whether related to IT or other fields, are also on the same path. It shows that the individuals, companies, whether startups, small, medium, or large, are recognizing the importance of Intellectual Property Protection. Besides, not just the businesses or entrepreneurs but even the government of India, is actively taking part in flourishing the IP filing scale of the nation. For instance, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry had reduced the patent filing fees for startups and MSMEs to Rs. 1600 from Rs. 4,000. It is one of the many steps that the department took to encourage people to come up with new ideas, inventions, designs, etc.

Ultimately, with over 60% of youth constituting India’s population and growing use of the internet and technology, pushing India further amongst the top five (or above) nations in the IP fillings worldwide should not be a big hurdle. However, it needs efforts on the part of both – the organizations and the government as the rise in IP filings will boost innovation and R&D activity, and the need to safeguard the innovations and products will grow the IP fillings in the country. ✅   For view-source: https://bit.ly/2Cidfpn

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