Bombay High Court restrains Dabur from using “NEEM” as the leading feature on its toothpaste
The Bombay High Court has restrained Dabur India from prominently using the word “NEEM” on its toothpaste packaging, in a trademark suit brought by Jyothy Labs, which holds three registered “NEEM” composite marks tracing back to roughly 1920 under a predecessor company.
Dabur argued that “neem” is a purely descriptive term referring to an ingredient, and that no single company should be able to monopolize a common botanical name used across the oral care industry. The Court disagreed with that framing, holding that Jyothy Labs’ mark functions as suggestive rather than merely descriptive, entitled to trademark protection, and finding Dabur’s use of the word as the dominant, eye-catching element of its packaging went beyond fair descriptive use of an ingredient name.
The distinction between a descriptive term (not protectable on its own) and a suggestive one (protectable) is one of the more fought-over lines in trademark law, and this case turned squarely on it.
Delhi High Court holds patent applicants have a separate right to be heard, even after pre-grant opposition
On August 31, 2026, the Delhi High Court ruled that a hearing conducted during pre-grant opposition proceedings cannot substitute for an applicant’s independent right to a hearing under Section 14 of the Patents Act, in a case brought by Fresenius Kabi Ipsum Srl against the Assistant Controller of Patents.
The Court held that Sections 14 and 25(1) of the Patents Act serve distinct procedural purposes, one addressing objections the Controller raises during examination, the other addressing a third party’s opposition to grant, and that denying an applicant a separate Section 14 hearing deprives them of a substantive opportunity to respond to the Controller’s own objections and amend their application accordingly.
The ruling reinforces that patent applicants are entitled to procedural fairness at each distinct stage of examination, rather than having one hearing treated as satisfying every statutory hearing requirement along the way.
Delhi District Court upholds jurisdiction over trademark suit based on e-commerce sales
A Delhi District Court has upheld its own territorial jurisdiction over a trademark infringement suit involving Apollo Pipes, rejecting a challenge from the defendant, on the basis that the plaintiff’s principal place of business is located in Delhi and its products are sold through e-commerce platforms accessible within the court’s jurisdiction.
The ruling relied on Section 134(2) of the Trade Marks Act, which allows a trademark owner to sue at the location of their own principal place of business, rather than requiring the case be filed only where the defendant resides or where the infringement physically occurred.
This decision sits alongside a broader, currently unsettled debate in Indian courts, also seen this month in a separate Delhi High Court referral involving Hindustan Unilever, over exactly how far online accessibility alone can stretch a court’s territorial reach in trademark and e-commerce disputes.
India’s Copyright Office rules AI-generated art can be copyrighted, but an AI cannot be its author
In an order dated August 31, 2026, Prof. (Dr.) Unnat P. Pandit, India’s Registrar of Copyrights, rejected an application seeking to name an AI system called DABUS as the legal author of an artwork, while separately holding that the artwork itself satisfies the originality requirement under Section 13 of the Copyright Act.
The application, filed by computer scientist Stephen Thaler, was considered over multiple hearings with an amicus curiae assisting the Registrar. The order held that DABUS has no legal personality under Indian law and cannot qualify as an “author” under Section 2(d)(vi), which attributes authorship of computer-generated work to “the person who causes the work to be created.” Thaler was given the opportunity to amend the application to name a human author but declined to do so.
