The End of the SIPP Scheme: What It Means for Indian Startups
The recent notified version of the Scheme for Facilitating Startups Intellectual Property Protection (SIPP) came to an end on 31 March 2026. As of May 2026, there has been no official announcement indicating an extension, renewal, or replacement of the scheme.
Launched in 2016 under the Startup India initiative, SIPP was created to make intellectual property protection more accessible for startups by reducing the financial burden of hiring professional IP services. Over nearly a decade, the scheme enabled thousands of patent, trademark, and design applications by allowing eligible applicants to access government-supported IP facilitation.
Delhi High Court Awards ₹3.34 Crore Damages in Counterfeit Medical Devices Case
The Hon’ble Delhi High Court has granted a permanent injunction in favour of the American pharmaceutical and medical devices giant Johnson & Johnson (“J&J”), restraining a New Delhi-based entity from infringing its trademarks ‘Surgicel’, ‘Ligaclip’ and ‘Ethicon’, and from manufacturing, distributing, or selling counterfeit surgical devices. Recognising the grave public health risks posed by counterfeit medical products, the Court also awarded damages amounting to approximately ₹3.34 crore against the defendants.
Delhi High Court Declares GSK’s CALPOL a Well-Known Trademark
In a decision reinforcing the importance of brand reputation and trademark protection in India, the Delhi High Court has declared GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals Limited’s (“GSK”) trademark “CALPOL” as a “Well-Known Trademark” under Section 2(1)(zg) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999. The ruling came in the backdrop of a trademark dispute involving the marks “CALPOL” and “WALPOL”, wherein the Court recognized the extensive goodwill, reputation, and long-standing commercial presence associated with the CALPOL brand in India.
Commercial Use of Music on Social Media: Zee Entertainment v. Nykaa
The rapid growth of short-form content has transformed social media marketing in India. Platforms such as Instagram have become indispensable tools for brands seeking consumer engagement through reels, influencer campaigns and promotional videos. As per 2025 data, almost 80 percent of marketing professionals integrated Facebook and Instagram into their digital marketing campaigns.
However, a multitude of recent legal developments, including the ongoing dispute between Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. and Nykaa, before the Hon’ble Delhi High Court have fuelled critical debates surrounding the various aspects of platform-based music licensing, commercial versus non-commercial use, intermediary liability and the extent to which brands may rely on digital music libraries while creating promotional content. This article will attempt to analyze these aspects from a holistic lens.
Two Gates, Eleven Grounds: The Strategic Geometry of Patent Oppositions in India
In patent law, time is not just a measure, it is a strategy. Every filing, disclosure, and procedural decision carries commercial consequences that often outweigh the invention itself. Among all mechanisms in the Indian patent system, opposition stands out as the point where law, timing, and competitive strategy intersect most sharply.
Unlike many jurisdictions where validity challenges are primarily court-driven, India provides a uniquely layered pre-litigation framework that enables third parties to intervene early, and meaningfully, in the life of a patent. These interventions are not merely defensive tools; they function as strategic instruments capable of influencing claim scope, delaying exclusivity, or strengthening patent portfolios.
The Question Your Patent Cannot Answer: Freedom to Operate in India
Indian patent law does not work that way. A patent principally confers an exclusionary right against third parties, namely the right to prevent others from exploiting the patented invention. It does not guarantee that the patentee may itself commercially practice the invention without infringing earlier or broader third-party rights.
That distinction sits at the centre of one of the most commercially significant and frequently neglected exercises in intellectual property strategy: the freedom-to-operate (“FTO”) assessment.
An FTO assessment examines whether a proposed product or process may be made, used, sold, offered for sale, or imported in a given jurisdiction without infringing valid and enforceable patent rights held by others. In practice, it is a legal risk assessment that informs whether a business can safely bring a product to market, scale it, attract investment, and sustain it in the market.
Defensive Publication: The Patent You Choose Not to Take
In intellectual property strategy, the most consequential decisions are often not what a company chooses to patent, but what it deliberately chooses not to patent.
Modern innovation ecosystems generate far more technical output than any organisation can economically prosecute through the patent system. Engineering teams iterate continuously. Manufacturing operations accumulate incremental process improvements. Software systems evolve through constant optimisation. Taken individually, these developments may appear incremental; collectively, they often represent a material source of competitive advantage.
When the File Moved On, the Order Stood Still: Delhi High Court Remands Medilabo Patent Refusal
The Delhi High Court in Medilabo RFP Inc. v. Controller of Patents set aside a refusal under Section 3(i) of the Patents Act, 1970 concerning a pharmaceutical invention for neurodegenerative diseases, The Court’s intervention turned on a more fundamental principle of patent adjudication: the Controller must decide an application on the basis of the claims as they stand on the date of the order and must deal with every objection raised in the hearing notice through reasoned findings.
In the present case, the refusal was based on claim features that had already been deleted through post-hearing amendments, while other live objections under Sections 2(1)(ja), 3(d), and 59 remained unaddressed. The Court therefore set aside the order and remanded the matter for fresh consideration on the correct record, leaving the substantive contours of Section 3(i),
Delhi High Court Clarifies SEP Enforcement in Philips DVD Technology Dispute
In a landmark 150-page judgment delivered on 18 May 2026, the Division Bench of the Hon’ble Delhi High Court set aside the 2018 royalty decree granted in favour of Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V., significantly restating the evidentiary and legal standards governing Standard Essential Patent (“SEP”) litigation in India.
The ruling revisits and clarifies critical principles relating to SEP essentiality, claim-to-product mapping, FRAND licensing obligations, and the doctrine of patent exhaustion under Section 107A(b) of the Patents Act, 1970.