Bulletin 38 | June 2026
Snapshots
DELHI HIGH COURT
The Hon’ble Court has quashed and remanded an order passed by the Controller of Patents and Design, rejecting the grant of a patent application titled “Absorbable Stent”. The Court reiterated that for assessing inventive step, the Controller of Patents and Design is required to identify the person skilled in the art and consider the disclosures in the prior art and difference with the subject application to understand the manner in which the subject invention may be obvious to the person skilled in the art.
The Court noted that failure to undertake the aforesaid analysis and / or refusal of an application on the basis of a hindsight analysis is not only impermissible under the law.
DELHI HIGH COURT
The Court dismissed a batch of 17 writ petitions filed by general entertainment channels, news and regional broadcasters challenging TRAI’s 12-minute-per-clock-hour advertisement ceiling under Rule 7(11) of the Cable TV Rules and Regulation 3 of the 2012/2013 Regulations. The cap limits a TV channel from broadcasting advertisements exceeding 12 minutes in any one clock hour (e.g., 2:00–3:00 PM).
Held, regulation of broadcasting serves the Directive Principles under Article 39(b), attracting Article 31-C protection. Broadcaster’s challenge essentially concerned commercial regulation and does not involve any impermissible restriction on speech. The framework was not violative of Article 14 or manifestly arbitrary. Accordingly, Rule 7(11) was upheld.
DELHI HIGH COURT
The Court granted an ex-parte ad interim injunction in favour of the actor, Varun Dhawan, protecting his personality and publicity right while recognizing that actor enjoys significant goodwill, has registered trademarks over his name and signature, and possesses enforceable personality and publicity rights.
The Court restrained Defendants from using or exploiting actor’s name, image, voice, likeness and other attributes through AI, machine learning, deepfakes, chatbots or similar technologies; prohibited sale of infringing merchandise, and restrained dissemination of derogatory or abusive content. The Court directed take-down of identified URLs within 36 hours, ordered intermediaries to disclose Basic Subscriber Information of infringing accounts, and issued a dynamic injunction requiring platforms to remove future infringing links notified by the plaintiff.
DELHI HIGH COURT
The Court granted an ex-parte ad-interim injunction restraining rogue websites from unauthorizedly hosting, streaming, and reproducing the plaintiff’s copyrighted cinematograph films.
Prima facie the Court was of the view that the defendants deliberately exploit IMDb’s legitimate URL structure by instructing users to manually insert the word “play” before “imdb,” redirecting them to unauthorized streaming interfaces.
Holding that the impugned websites constitute rogue platforms deliberately structured to facilitate large-scale copyright infringement under Sections 14 and 51 of the Copyright Act, the Court directed Domain Name Registrars to suspend the domains and ISPs to block access within 72 hours.
DELHI HIGH COURT
The Division Bench of the Court, in its judgment dated 09 March 2026, vacated the ex parte interim injunction granted in 2019 against the import and sale of genuine second-hand Western Digital Hard Disk Drives. Reaffirming the principle of international exhaustion under Section 30(3) of the Trade Marks Act, as recognized in Kapil Wadhwa, and relying upon Seagate v. Daichi, the Division Bench held that genuine refurbished goods may be imported and sold, provided adequate disclosures are made regarding their refurbished condition, source, and the absence of the original manufacturer’s warranty or after-sales support, so as to avoid consumer confusion. Western Digital Technologies challenged the judgment before the Supreme Court by way of a Special Leave Petition; however, the Supreme Court declined to interfere and dismissed the petition.
Significant Judgments
DELHI HIGH COURT
The Court examined whether Google’s AdWords programme could permit competitors to bid on Plaintiff’s trademark “HINDWARE” as a keyword, resulting in their sponsored links appearing when users searched for the word ‘Hindware’. The Plaintiff’s mark ‘Hindware’ was found to be registered, distinctive, long-used and well-known in the sanitaryware industry. Although the contesting Defendants’ settled with the Plaintiff, the dispute continued against Google. Google contended that keywords were merely invisible backend triggers and did not amount to trademark use, while also claiming intermediary protection under Section 79 of the Information and Technology Act. The Court rejected these defences, holding that use of a trademark as a keyword constitutes use “in advertising” under Section 29 of the Trade Marks Act. Google’s auctioning, suggestion and monetisation of the Plaintiff’s coined mark was held to amount to unfair advantage and infringement. The Court granted a permanent injunction, ₹30 lakh nominal damages and actual costs against Google.
SURPREME COURT OF INDIA
The Supreme Court adjudicated a batch of appeals arising from judgments of the Madras High Court and the Karnataka High Court, which had struck down provisions of the Tamil Nadu Gaming and Police Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021 and the Karnataka Police (Amendment) Act, 2021, respectively. The High Courts had held that the amendments were disproportionate as they brought online games of skill played for stakes within the ambit of “gaming”, contrary to the settled legal position that games such as rummy and poker fall outside gambling legislation
The Supreme Court was of the view that the power of the State, under Entry 34 in List II of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India cannot be construed narrowly and can be used to address the problem of betting and gambling in light of documented societal issues arising from such games. It further held that the presence of staking or wagering on uncertain outcomes is sufficient to attract the State’s power to regulate such activities, irrespective of whether the underlying game is one of skill or chance.
SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
In a case arising from an order of the Rent Control Authority determining the enhanced rent payable by the State Government under the proviso to Section 21(8) of the Uttar Pradesh Urban Building (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972, the High Court while exercising its supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution enhanced the rent. The Supreme Court considered whether the deletion of clauses (ii) and (iv) of the Explanation to Section 21(1) rendered the proviso to Section 21(8) inoperative, and whether the High Court was justified in determining the enhanced rent.
The Supreme Court held that the deletion merely removed the exceptional grounds on which a landlord could seek release of a building occupied by the State Government under Section 21(1). However, the amendment did not dilute the statutory remedy available to landlords under the proviso to Section 21(8). The court noted that accepting the State’s interpretation would deprive landlords of both possession and economic benefit from their property. The Court further held that although supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 can be exercised by the High Court in exceptional circumstances, the High Court’s order was unsupported by the record in the present case, warranting to be set aside.
Meet the Picklers
Sneha Jain, Snehima Jauhari, Srishti Dhoundiyal, Ishi Singh, Abhinav Bhalla, Pushpit Ghosh, Harsshita Pothiraj, Devika Tiwari, Affan Moin and Aditya Singh Thakur.
