Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting has reportedly obtained an interim restraining a trademark infringement case against K.K. Lamps, a Delhi-based Company. While Wipro sells GLS lamps under the brand name ‘Safelite’, K.K. Lamps sold its product under the brand name ‘Safelife’ using similar packaging.
Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul of the Delhi High Court has virtually rewritten the law related to obscenity.
After M F Hussain painted ‘Bharat Mata’ depicting Mother India as a woman, a depiction which Hindu Fundamentalists found obscene, cases were filed against the painter in Gujarat, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh. The Supreme Court consolidated these cases into one case in the Delhi High Court on September 4, 2006.
Rajeev Dhavan has said that what Justice Kaul has done is:
Incidentally, Justice Kishan Kaul is the judge responsible for revamping defamation law in the 2004 Maneka Gandhi case.
That being said, it is not unusual to have cases filed because something / someone is supposedly obscene.
1. Richard Gere faces obscenity charges in India for kissing actress Shilpa Shetty during an event to raise AIDS awareness – although the Supreme Court has stayed proceedings in a lower court, the arrest warrant has not been quashed.
2. However, Justices AR Lakshmanan and Tarun Chatterjee of the Supreme Court dismissed a PIL seeking ban on obscenity in papers filed by Advocate Ajay Goswami in 2006.
3. But item girl Rakhi Sawant was refused permission by the Hyderabad police to perform at an event there.
4. A PIL was filed against Hrithik Roshan, Aishwarya Rai and the producer and director of Dhoom 2 by Advocate Sudhir Kumar Ojha for attacking the image of the Indian woman by kissing in the film.
5. The Bombay High Court banned TV all channels from showing adult content without certification as a result of a PIL filed by Pratiba Naitthani, a political science professor.
Read more on Justice Kaul’s Decision by Rajeev Dhavan
Ambush marketing is the practice of running a marketing campaign around an event without actually being an official sponsor of the event or paying any fees to the person who conducts the event. One of the most well known examples of this happening in recent history is in the case of Pepsi’s ‘Nothing Official About It’ campaign during the 1996 World Cup in which Coca-Cola was the official sponsor.
It is often thought of as a form of unfair competition and can be carried out in any number of ways: through the use of slogans, through endorsements from participants such as sportspersons involved in the event concerned or by simply purchasing advertising space in the vicinity of the venue of the event.
Those who engage in ambush marketing do not (and cannot legally) explicitly represent themselves as being sponsors of the event. However, their tactics are often designed to implicitly create the impression in the minds of the general public that such an association exists.
At other times, they parody the ads of official sponsors who are competitors. Such parodies are often seen independent of any event, but when a third party is involved and the target of the parody has paid a lot of money to be associated with that third party (or an event organised by the third party) the dynamics of the relationship between the competitors changes.
In the case of parodies, copyrights and trademarks in the original would probably not be infringed. In addition to that, fair use and the right to freedom of speech and expression would usually ensure their legality which means that those targeted by ambush marketing would not easily be able to sue for copyright infringement, trademark violations or passing off although they may be able to sue under unfair competition laws.
India, like many other countries, does not have a law which specifically deals with ambush marketing or advertising. In fact, in 2003, the Delhi High Court said that ambush marketing is legal under Indian law in the case of ICC v. Arvee Enterprises and Philips.
Justice Gita Mittal of the Delhi High Court said, “There is no law which can deprive a mother of her child because of AIDS,” in a case where a woman’s in-laws tried to deprive her of the custody of her child after the death of her husband.
The woman, Sunita Verma, had apparently contracted the virus before her marriage. Not too surprisingly, her in-laws, Ram Gopal Verma and his wife Phoolwati, decided to say that she should not be given custody of the child because she was of ‘bad character’ and would have bad influence on the child.
The Court does not appear to have said that that fact was immaterial. It merely pointed out that the virus could be transmitted by a blood transfusion.
I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if it had been irrefutably proved that the woman had been involved in a pre-marital relationship.
Sunita Verma is, however, scheduled to have the custody her child handed over her.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/HIV-mother-cant-be-deprived-custody-of-child/305198/
Holding that a mistress or a live-in partner is to be treated at par with a wife under the Domestic Violence Act, 2005, a Bench of the Delhi High Court comprising Justices Vikramjit Sen and P K Bhasin has said:
We find no reason why equal treatment should not be accorded to a wife as well as a woman who has been living with a man as his common-law wife or even as a mistress.
Like treatment to both (wives and mistress) does not, in any manner, derogate from the sanctity of marriage since an assumption can fairly be drawn that a live-in relationship is invariably initiated and perpetuated by the male.
In unfortunate and uncomfortable situations like these, if the protection given to unwedded women results in the diminution of funds available for maintenance of the legally wedded wives and the legitimate children, such diminution would not render the statute unconstitutional.
There is perception, not unfounded or unjustified, that the lot and fate of women in India is an abjectly dismal one…the argument that the Act is ultra vires the constitution because it accords protection only to women and not to men is, therefore, wholly devoid of any merit.
The court should also not be impervious to social stigma which always sticks to women and not to the men.