India’s Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (CGPDTM) has notified users that scheduled maintenance of its copyright e-services has been completed, with online filing, public search and e-register services fully restored from 6:00 p.m. on 12 May 2026. For applicants and representatives, the immediate task is practical rather than theoretical: check pending filings, any deadline arrangements linked to the outage, and the accuracy of system records once the portal is back in operation.The notice comes as CGPDTM is also promoting recent gains in patent...
IP India has issued an urgent alert after technical problems at the Bharatkosh payment gateway disrupted parts of its electronic filing services and left some applications without a proper post-payment status update. The office said the system was upgraded on 26 May and advised applicants facing payment anomalies to retain payment receipts, application details and transaction records, then contact the office promptly rather than assuming the filing has settled correctly.This is the kind of short operational notice that can still create real procedural trouble. When payment goes through but...
On 9 July 2026, India’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and IP Australia signed an access agreement for the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) as part of the outcomes announced at the third India–Australia Annual Summit. Under the TKDL access framework, Australian patent examiners may use the database on a confidential basis for search and examination, drawing on a large body of documented traditional medicine formulations and related literature. IP Australia had already referred to TKDL as a non-patent literature resource in its examination guidance; the new...
India will ordinarily stop posting first examination reports for design applications from 2 October 2026. A notice published by IP India on 7 September specifies delivery to the email address recorded under the Indian address for service in Form 1. Paper dispatch remains possible where the Controller records written reasons based on the interests of justice or administrative exigencies. The change has not yet taken effect as of 16 September.For overseas applicants, a functioning mailbox at the Indian agent is only one part of a reliable reporting chain. JCIPO recommends checking the...
Indian practitioners have been discussing since 26 September an earlier Delhi High Court judgment in ZARA v ZORA: the court held that when a proprietor invokes Section 11(2) of the Trade Marks Act 1999 to protect a well-known mark across classes, the statute imposes no precondition that the mark must first have been formally declared well known under Rule 124, and the court or the Registrar may decide the point in the case at hand on the factors in Section 11(6) and related provisions. The judgment was delivered by Justice Jyoti Singh on 6 July 2026 (C.A.(COMM.IPD-TM) 52/2024) on...
India's IP authority, the CGPDTM (Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks), published on 17 October a draft set of Guidelines on the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Proceedings before the Trade Marks Registry and opened them for public comment. The draft was prepared on the directions of the Delhi High Court in W.P.(C)-IPD 16/2026 (Stryten Energy LLC v. Nidhi Agarwal & Ors.) and is not yet in force.
In a 246-page common judgment delivered on 3 November in ABD Maestro v. Great Galleon (CS(COMM) 987/2026) and 16 connected suits, the Delhi High Court held that none of the 17 IP suits fell within its territorial jurisdiction. It returned the plaints under Order VII Rule 10 of the Code of Civil Procedure for presentation before the appropriate court, with liberty to seek directions under Rule 10A. The ruling deals only with jurisdiction; infringement remains to be decided by the proper court.
From 1 to 8 November: a source-code trade secret ruling, China's examination plan to 2030, three UPC cases, Delhi jurisdiction rules and the UK inquiry into Meta's terms.
