India: Trademark

The recent judicial determination in the PISCO geographical indication dispute examines whether Peru can claim exclusive rights to the standalone term 'PISCO' for its alcoholic beverage, or whether both Peru and Chile's long-standing use of the term necessitates geographical qualifiers to prevent consumer confusion.

The implementation of this principle over years can be discussed with references to two cases of the Hon’ble Delhi High Court: Bhatia Plastics v. Peacock Industries Ltd. (1994) and Victoria Foods Pvt Ltd. vs Ashad Trading Co. (2026). These two cases show that Indian courts uphold trademarks against infringement under the conceptual equivalence and translation of Infringements.

This paper will analyze how the law of trademarks can safeguard the influencers in the creator economy, the latest trends in India, and the legal issues related to the possibility of securing online identities in the fast-growing online market.

The recently concluded India–European Union Free Trade Agreement (India–EU FTA) has been aptly hailed as the “Mother of All Trade Deals”, a phrase that captures the scale, ambition, and strategic importance of the Agreement. Announced jointly by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, and the President of the European Commission, H.E. Ms. Ursula von der Leyen, at the 16th India–EU Summit held in New Delhi, the Agreement marks a historic milestone in India

The advent of digital advertising has brought trademark law into direct conflict with online market practices, particularly keyword bidding. The use of competitors’ trademarks by businesses to promote their own goods and services, albeit as invisible keywords, has often been debated as “infringement”, thereby causing unfair advantages and consumer confusion.

The jurisprudence surrounding the concept of ‘descriptiveness' under the Indian trademark law has been witnessing renewed judicial attention in recent months. With brands increasingly using semi-descriptive and suggestive trade marks to retain consumer recall value, the question of where descriptiveness ends and distinctiveness begins has become critical to the questions of registrability and enforcement.

Welcome to the January 2026 edition of our Intellectual Property Newsletter, bringing together key legal, regulatory, and industry developments shaping the global IP landscape.

In today's innovation-driven economy, intellectual property (IP) is often the most valuable asset a startup owns.

In today's world, the use of humour, satire, and parody as means of transmitting messages globally, commenting on society, and pushing boundaries in corporate advertising has grown rapidly.