Introduction As the limits of trademark law are stretched with the rise of non-traditional marks, questions arise on how to reliably judge them in the courtroom without succumbing to subjectivity. With hurdles faced from registration to disproving confusion, uncertainty engulfs unconventional marks, especially in India. Since these marks are far less explored vis-à-vis the traditional visual marks, perhaps the way forward is to incorporate objective tools of neuroscience as a

The Novartis Precedent and the Ascent of the Therapeutic Efficacy Doctrine The Supreme Court of India's 2013 judgment in Novartis AG v. Union of India & Others  was the tipping point in the history of pharmaceutical patenting and international intellectual property law. One loosely phrased clause in the  Indian Patents Act , Section 3(d), was converted into a powerful doctrine that has, in turn, dictated the intellectual property rights-public health balance ever since. Thro

Introduction What will happen if the copyright law, made to protect creativity, becomes a weapon to silence it? This question came alive in a recent controversy between Asian News International (‘ANI’) and Mohak Mangal, a YouTuber, along with several prominent Indian social media creators in May 2025. They alleged ANI of leveraging copyright claims and forcing creators to pay large sums of money for using short clips of ANI in their content. In May 2025, YouTuber Mohak Mangal

Introduction The nascent field of Fashion Law owes a sizeable proportion of its burgeoning body of scholarly writing and interest to its intersection with intellectual property law and related areas. More specifically, the issue of cultural appropriation wherein multinational fashion houses and brands incorporate designs and elements of traditional items of clothing or accessories associated with communities and cultures in third-world countries into their own lines or produc

Introduction The Nagoya Protocol  (“Protocol”) was introduced in the year 2014 to fulfil the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity . Specifically, the Protocol aimed to implement the objective of fair and equitable benefit sharing arising out of the utilisation of genetic resources. In pursuance of these notions, Articles 10 and 11 of the Protocol envision scenarios wherein states engage in transboundary cooperation in the use and management of shared genetic

Introduction India follows a judicial system that maintains a pyramidal hierarchy in its functioning, adhering to the doctrine of stare decisis and the express constitutional mandate under Article 141, which establishes that the law declared by the Supreme Court is binding on all courts.   While the United States lacks a constitutional provision for vertical stare decisis , it proposes an intriguing question :  “Why must one follow the Supreme Court when it is not an infall

Introduction In 2023, the Competition Commission of India (‘CCI’ or ‘the Commission’) found itself in an unprecedented situation . With only an Acting Chairperson and a Member, the Commission faced a backlog of pending merger approvals. This led to the invocation of the doctrine of necessity  in order to examine and approve combination agreements, i.e, mergers and acquisitions. Normally, an M&A approval, being an administrative function, requires a quorum of three members, a

India's automotive industry has been growing rapidly, due to an increase in the need of consumers to move faster and smarter. Millions of...