Madras High Court inaugurates its Intellectual Property Rights Division

Madras High Court inaugurates its Intellectual Property Rights Division

Notified the IPD Rules, 2022 by way of a gazette notification

The Madras High Court acting Chief Justice T Raja has inaugurated the Court's Intellectual Property Rights Division (IPD).

The members of the high court IPR Committee, Justice M Sundar, Justice Abdul Quddhose, and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy said that the newly-notified IPR Division Rules became effective from 5 April.

The Chairperson of the Committee, Justice Sundar stated that IPD’s creation and framing of the Rules will facilitate speedy adjudication. It will especially help appellants, who waited for their cases to be listed ever since the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) was abolished in 2021.

IPD is a specialized division set up to exclusively adjudicate matters pertaining to intellectual property rights, following the Tribunals Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Ordinance, 2021 that abolished the IPAB. Following such ordinance, all matters pending before the IPAB were transferred to the respective high courts.

Hereafter, the statutes dealing with IPDD include, the Trade Marks Act, 1999; the Copyright Act, 1957; the Patents Act, 1970; the Designs Act, 2000; the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999; the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001, and the Semiconductor Integrated Circuits Layout Design Act, 2000.