SSRana Newsletter 2022 Issue 06

March 31, 2022
Legal Metrology

CGPDTM – Issuance of Orders in Matters which are amicably settled by Parties

cgpdtm logoOffice of CGPDTM has notified that pending matters where parties have arrived at an amicable settlement, may be brought to the notice of the concerned officer.

ASCI releases Guidelines to govern Ads for Cryptocurrency

ASCI logoThe Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has recently come out with Guidelines to regulate the advertising and promotion of Virtual Digital Assets exchange and trading platforms and associated services.

Facebook – Brand Rights Protection

facebook Brand RightsFacebook focuses on providing a safe, secure and welcoming platform to its users that protects intellectual properties and brands of its users.

Iraq joins the PCT System- WIPO

Wipo logoThe Government of Iraq has deposited its instrument of accession to the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) with WIPO. The PCT is slated to come into force in Iraq on April 30, 2022.


Issuance of Orders in Matters which are amicably settled by Parties- CGPDTM

Controller General of Patents, Designs & TM

The Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (CGPDTM), Mumbai has issued a public notice dated February 07, 2022 [1], regarding the pending opposition and rectification matters wherein the parties have settled the case amicably.

The public notice in the aforesaid context notifies that in certain pending opposition and rectification cases the parties have already settled their cases amicably. However, no final orders could be issued in such cases due to lack of information at Trade Marks Registry, at respective Branch offices.

According to the said notice, the pending matters where the parties have arrived at an amicable settlement, may be brought to the notice of the concerned officer of the respective Branches of the Trade Marks Registry with supporting documents immediately through email by March 20, 2022, thereby enabling the respective Trade Marks Registry to pass suitable orders in the said matters as per law.

The email in this regard must contain a subject line- “Withdrawal/settlement of Opposition/Rectification/Application No. (Application No. and Opposition / Rectification No.)

The TMR Branches and their corresponding emails wherein the email regarding settlement can be sent are as under:

Newsletter
Branches Concerned E-mail ID
TMR Ahmedabad jai.tmr@nic.in
TMR Chennai mm.habibulla@nic.in
TMR Delhi opposition.delhitmr@gov.in
TMR Kolkata jeevan.kumar@nic.in
TMR Mumbai anoopsri.tmr@gov.in

[1] Public Notice opposition

Related Posts

Office of CGPDTM, Mumbai extends Limitation Period

ASCI releases the Guidelines to govern Ads for Cryptocurrency

ASCI Guidelines

By Vikrant Rana and Ragini Ghosh

Advertisements for Virtual Digital Assets

In recent days, most of us have been afflicted by advertisements flaunting the benefits of investing in cryptocurrency, touting them to be a sure-fire scheme to earn thousands, even lakhs, in a matter of moments. Numerous cryptocurrency exchanges and apps have burst onto the scene and taken over aggressive advertising, especially in the online sphere, invoking customers to invest nominal amounts with a guarantee of enormous lucrative returns. These ads have been designed so cleverly to tempt and lure a curious consumer into speculating in these new fangled assets, that it is easy to forget just how volatile the market for cryptocurrency actually is and that it is a completely unregulated form of currency, with no regulatory fall-back option. In fact, these ads as well as corresponding social media hype is so effective regarding the subject matter, that one would be forgiven for having FOMO for not investing in crypto!

Virtual Digital Assets (VDA’s) encompasses cryptocurrency and NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens, another new form of virtual asset, comprising of authenticated ownership of a piece of digital art or media). With the on-set of metaverse compatible internet marketplaces, VDA’s have arrested everyone’s attention and have exploded in popularity over the last few years, fuelled by additional time spent by citizens on the internet owing to the effects of the global pandemic. While information and know-how about VDA’s has certainly been widely disseminated all across the internet as well as over recent news headlines and celebrity endorsements, it is however being seen that common knowledge about VDA’s among the general public is inadequate for making secure financial investments.[1]

Additionally, the Budget 2022 introduced, for the first time, a taxation regimen with respect to crypto assets wherein there is now a flat 1% tax imposed on gains from crypto assets, and a 1% tax deducted at source on each crypto transaction.

It is, therefore, to ensure consumer safety, so that lay citizens do not enter into detrimental financial liabilities and undertake uncalculated risks, that ASCI has considered it imperative to regulate the proliferating advertising of such speculative and volatile financial products.

ASCI’s Objective and Statement

On February 23, 2022, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) came out with guidelines to regulate the advertising and promotion of VDA exchange and trading platforms and associated services, as a necessary interim measure while the Indian government continues to work on coming out with a comprehensive regulatory structure to control such assets. These guidelines have been formulated after extensive consultation with all stakeholders, including the government and are intended to come into effect for all VDA related advertisements and promotions post April 01, 2022. Additionally, advertisers and media owners must also ensure that all earlier advertisements must not appear in the public domain unless they comply with the guidelines, post 15th of April 2022.

ASCI has stated that: “Advertising for these products [VDA’s] has been very aggressive over the past few months. The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) noted that several of these advertisements do not adequately disclose the risks associated with such products. In order to safeguard consumer interest, and to ensure that ads do not mislead or exploit consumers’ lack of expertise on these products, ASCI has extensively consulted with different stakeholders including government and the virtual digital asset industry – to frame guidelines for virtual digital asset advertising.”

Salient features of ASCI Guidelines on Ads for Cryptocurrency

The salient guidelines as released by ASCI [2] are summarized below:

  • All ads for VDA products and VDA exchanges, or featuring VDAs, must carry the following disclaimer:“Crypto products and NFTs are unregulated and can be highly risky. There may be no regulatory recourse for any loss from such transactions.”Such a disclaimer must be made in the following manner so that it is PROMINENT and UNMISSABLE by an average consumer.

 

  • In print or static, equal to at least 1/5th of the advertising space at the bottom of the advertisement in an easy to read font, against a plain background, and to the maximum font size afforded by the space.

 

  • In video, the disclaimer should be placed at the end of the advertisement against a plain background. A voiceover must accompany the disclaimer in text. The voiceover should be at a normal speaking pace and must not be hurried. In the case of long format video of over two minutes, the said disclaimer should be repeated at the beginning and at the end of the video. The disclaimer must remain on screen for a minimum of five seconds.

 

  • In audio, the disclaimer must be spoken at the end of the advertisement. The voiceover should be at a normal speaking pace and must not be hurried. In the case of long format audio of over 90 seconds, the said disclaimer should be repeated at the beginning and at the end of the audio.

 

  • In social media posts, such a disclaimer must be carried in both- the caption as well as any picture or video attachments. The disclaimer within the caption must be placed upfront at the beginning of the post. Where social media posts or advertisements have restrictions on text in the static picture, the disclaimer must be carried upfront in the caption before the fold.

 

  • In disappearing stories or posts unaccompanied by text, the said disclaimer will need to be voiced at the end of the story in the manner laid out in points (a) or (b) above. If the video is 15 seconds or lesser, then the disclaimer may be carried in a prominent and visible manner as an overlay.

 

  • In formats where there is a limit on characters, the following shortened disclaimer must be used “Crypto products and NFTs are unregulated and risky” followed by a link to the full disclaimer.

 

  • The disclaimer must be made in the dominant language of the advertisement

 

  • In addition to the above, all disclaimers must meet the minimum requirements laid down in the ASCI guidelines for disclaimers.

 

  • The words “currency”, “securities”, “custodian” and “depositories” may not be used in advertisements of VDA products or services as consumers associate these terms with regulated products.

 

  • The information contained in advertisements shall not contradict the information or warnings that the regulated entities provide to customers in the marketing of VDA products from time to time.

 

  • Advertisements that provide information on the cost or profitability of VDA products shall contain clear, accurate, sufficient and updated information. For example, “zero cost” will need to include all costs that the consumer might reasonably associate with the offer or transaction.

 

  • Information on past performance shall not be provided in any partial or biased manner. Returns for periods of less than 12 months shall not be included.

 

  • Every advertisement for VDA products must clearly give out the name of the advertiser and provide an easy way to contact them (phone number or email). This information should be presented in a manner that is easily understood by the average consumer.

 

  • No advertisement for VDA products or exchanges may show a minor, or someone who appears to be a minor, directly dealing with the product, or talking about the product.

 

  • No advertisement may show that VDA products or VDA trading could be a solution to money problems, personality problems or other such drawbacks.

 

  • No advertisement shall contain statements that promise or guarantee future increase in profits.

 

  • No advertisement may show that understanding VDA products is so easy that consumers do not have to think twice about investing. Nothing in the ad should downplay the risks associated with the category.

 

  • VDA products may not be compared to any other asset class which is regulated.

 

  • Since this is a risky category, celebrities or prominent personalities who appear in VDA advertisements must take special care to ensure that they have done their due diligence about the statements and claims made in the advertisement, so as not to mislead consumers.

Conclusion

VDA’s are indeed a revolutionary way of acquiring assets and wealth, specifically for the generations growing up with the Internet, and that in itself has sparked a great deal of curiosity among younger investors. However, it is important to keep in mind that VDA’s are complex entities and their transactional impacts have not yet been fully understood. Being an emerging channel of investing, it will require specific guidance and consumers must be hand-held at this stage through initial risks and advised to proceed with caution. Flashy advertisements which gloss over the negatives and pitch investing in VDA’s as a glamorous and lucrative financial option are dangerous lure for this section of consumers and they may end up making misinformed decisions which may in turn prove harmful for the economy as a whole. Additionally, being still unregulated, investing in VDA’s poses the significant risk of having no option for appeal or redress should things go wrong and speculations take a turn for the worse.

Thus, stipulating guidelines is an important step taken by ASCI to protect consumer interests and ensure that commercial entities dealing in such assets do not mislead consumers by implication, ambiguity, exaggeration or omission, and are not framed in a way that abuses their trust or exploits their lack of knowledge. That said, while these new ASCI guidelines will rightly be heralded as a much needed development, there are a few aspects in the rules which may be considered to be regressive. For instance, the prohibition of usage of the word “currency” in respect of advertisements for VDA products seems a tad unnecessary, as for instance, Bitcoin or Doge, at the end of the day, are Crypto-currency, and the same should not be sugar-coated.

The guidelines framed by ASCI will serve as an important interim measure for self-regulation of such advertising content until a legal framework is officially brought into place by requisite legislation.

[1] See: Survey finds one third of crypto buyers dont know what theyre doing
as on February 28, 2022.

[2] See: VDA guidelines press release feb 23

Related Posts

Well-versed with Metaverse? An IP Perspective

The Cryptocurrency Saga: Tracing the Developments in India

Brand Rights Protection of Facebook

facebook - Brand

By Arpit Kalra and Shilpi Sinha

In the present digital age, rapid growth in online marketing has forced the business owners to go beyond their conventional product distribution and promotional activities. It has now become necessary for businesses to utilise online mediums including several social media platforms not only to retain their existing market presence, but to reach their customers as quickly as possible without any territorial limitation. The phrase “digital marketing” refers to the promotion of items using online mediums / platforms. The business owners are now equally focusing on digital marketing in addition to their regular marketing strategies to improve their brand image and product promotion. This results into significant growth in usage of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn as a medium for digital marketing.

 

At present, the tool providers provide specialist platforms/tools for specific purposes such as Social Media Monitoring (to track and monitor the public opinion and statements about any company, product, brand etc.), Social Media Analytics (for data mining and analytics on Twitter, Facebook and other social network media sources) etc.

Meta Platforms, Inc. (doing business as Meta / Meta Platforms and formerly known as Facebook, Inc.) is the parent organization of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Facebook, being one of the largest and popular social media platform, focuses on providing a safe, secure and welcoming platform to its users that protects intellectual properties and brands of its users.

The Facebook Branding tool is a streamlined interpretation (initially known as Commerce & Advertisement IP Tool) which includes a streamlined automated request takedown process.

Intellectual Property holders who want to protect their property at scale have twofold tools for use; i.e. Brand Rights Protection and Rights Manager. Both tools operate in a distinctive way and for different purposes. The user has the liberty to decide which tool is best for its IP.

Brand Rights Protection permits a registered trademark owner to search and report content that he believes infringing its intellectual property rights and the revamp brings simplification to the process. It provides an interface for brand owners to identify and report content in ads, Marketplace, Shops, Instagram accounts and certain types of posts and groups. Brand Rights Protection can be accessed from Business Manager. Prior to using this tool, one needs to apply and get approved. Relevant screenshots are given below:

 

facebook screenshot data

facebook screenshot data new

 

The brand owner can upload and save up to ten (10) images of their brand or product images. Facebook’s image-matching technology review advertisements on Facebook and Instagram through an automated process enabling the brand owners to review and report any content that is potentially infringing their IP Rights.

 

As Facebook, Instagram are now associated and under common ownership, Facebook has also expanded the tool beyond ads and commerce, for the first time, now permitting brands to quest and report Instagram accounts and posts. This competence was formerly available exclusively for ads, sale posts from Shops or Marketplace. The dashboard provides the brand owners with comprehensive data and details of actions taken.

facebook data

facebook data delivery reports

 

On the other hand, Rights Manager is Meta’s copyright administration tool which help the rights holders oversee, authorize, protect and drive value from their video, audio, and image content on Facebook and Instagram. Facebook technology probes and identifies audio, video or image content that matches with the holder’s Intellectual property. Facebook Users can access Rights Manager from Creator Studio. Right Manager scrutinizes the content which the rights holder uploaded to the tool, such as image, video or audio, and searches for infringing content. Right holders can either take action on matched content, by way of blocking the content, request a takedown or by collecting the ad earnings from ads placed within their video content.

Facebook also provides details to help brand owners to pick the proper IP tool for their needs. Brand Rights Protection averts the sale of counterfeit products by permitting businesses to quest and report IP infringement across Facebook and Instagram, on the other hand, Rights Manager assists creators and originators to oversee unauthorized sharing of their contents protected under laws by searching the platforms of Facebook and Instagram.

 

The PCT System joins by the IRAQ- WIPO

PCT System - Wipo

By Renu Bala and Johny Solomon Raj

In a recent development, the Government of Iraq has deposited its instrument of accession to the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) with World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO), Director General, Daren Tang[1]. The PCT is slated to come into force in Iraq on April 30, 2022.

How is it useful for Inventors?

  • Inventors in Iraq can now file patent application under the Treaty for seeking patent protection in PCT contracting states. PCT now has 155 Contracting States. Hence, by filing a PCT application, inventors in Iraq can simultaneously secure protection for an invention in these Contracting States.
  • Foreign Inventors can seek patent protection for their inventions in Iraq through the PCT system.

PCT Application

The PCT system helps applicants to go global while still having the flexibility to decide as to which contracting countries of the PCT, they wish to prosecute the application in the national phase stage.

Patent Applicants seeking global protection for their inventions, can file one International Patent application under the PCT and get access to protecting their invention in 155 contracting member States worldwide.

To know more about PCT application .

[1] PCT news

 

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