India: Trademark

Africa is becoming an increasingly important market for global brands. With a combined GDP of more than USD 3 trillion, a fast-growing urban middle class, and stronger regional trade driven by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the continent offers significant opportunities for business expansion.

In ANI Media Pvt. Ltd. v. Open AI OpCo LLC, CS(COMM) 1028/2024, the Delhi High Court delivered a significant judgment on the intersection of copyright law and Generative Artificial Intelligence. Deciding an application for interim injunction, the Court examined questions concerning the use of copyrighted works for training Large Language Models (LLMs), the scope of copyright infringement arising from AI-generated outputs, the applicability of the fair dealing exception under Section 52 of the Copyright Act, 1957, and the territorial jurisdiction of Indian courts over AI developers operating through servers located overseas.

Intellectual property portfolios can be destroyed not by litigation or competition, but by a single missed renewal deadline. A patent that survived years of prosecution or a trademark built over decades can vanish because an annuity payment went unpaid on a date nobody was watching. This examination reveals how these administrative failures occur under Indian statute, why restoration is far weaker than most proprietors assume, and what a defensible renewal framework looks like in practice.