With reference to both online and offline violations, are Indian laws adequate?
The laws are adequate; it’s the delay in our systems which is of concern. In addition, we do not have a sufficiently advanced concept of damages, such as those in overseas jurisdictions. We are moving towards it though. In February 2005, the Delhi high court passed a landmark order awarding penal damages – one of the first in the country in trademark and IPR issues – in our case against Fashion ID Ltd, a Chinese company. This company had registered the domain name tatainfotecheducation.com: a misuse of three trademarks – Tata, Tata Infotech and Tata Infotech Education. Though the order has not yet been enforced due to cross-territorial rights, I think we will be able to use this as a precedent in future orders within the country to award punitive damages. Where is Tata Sons moving in terms of brand protection? We have reached a stage where chasing a counterfeit cutlery case does not give us sufficient challenge. We now create precedents, look at new legislations and test it in internat
