GRAFFITI #1

A. FILING OF RESOLUTIONS WITH REGISTRAR OF COMPANIES. [GENERAL CIRCULAR NO. 14/2020 DATED 8TH APRIL 2020 AND GENERAL CIRCULAR NO. 17/2020 DATED 13TH APRIL 2020:

Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) vide aforementioned circulars had enabled conducting general meetings of members through video conference (VC) or through other audio-visual means (OAVM). As per provisions of Companies Act 2013, all special resolutions are required to be filed with the Registrar of Companies (ROC) within 30 days of passing of the resolution. In respect of resolutions, both ordinary or special resolutions, passed using the VC or OAVM facility (meetings held pursuant to the above circulars), the time limit for filing with the Registrar of Companies (ROC) has been extended to 60 days from date of passing such resolution. The resolution to be filed with ROC has to be accompanied by a declaration to the effect that the company has complied with the process and instructions mentioned in the circulars along with other provisions of the act and the rules.

B. AMENDMENT TO CSR RULES: [NOTIFICATION NO 419 and 420 DATED 24TH AUGUST 2020]:

Vide this notification, CSR Rules and Schedule VII of the Act has been amended, to enable the R&D expenditure incurred by companies in R&D of Covid-19 vaccine, drug(s) and medical devices in their normal course of business, to account it as CSR expenditure, for financial years 2020-2021, 2021-2022 and 2022-2023, so long as these companies carry out their R&D in collaboration with the institutes or organisation mentioned in item (ix) of Schedule VII to the Act- such as Central/State Government/Public Sector Undertaking funded incubators, IITs, National Laboratories established by certain Central Government Departments – Department of Biotechnology, AYUSH etc.

In addition, such companies, should specify the details of the activity carried out on such research and development, in their CSR report as part of their Board’s Report to the shareholders.

GRAFFITI #2

The CGPDTM has been issuing public notices as part of the Trademark Journals bearing numbers 1928 to 1939, published since 20th July 2020, intimating closure of the opposition window for the Trademarks published in the said Journals and thereby allowing the unopposed trademarks published under the said journals for registration. It is to be noted that Read More

GRAFFITI #3

In the light of the COVID-19 pandemic situation prevailing in the country, the CGPDTM has decided to conduct show cause hearings for trademark matters pursuant to the Trademarks Rules, 2017, through video conferencing and in this regard, a public notice was issued on 26th August 2020 that Read More

GRAFFITI #4

Patanjali Ayurveda Limited (Patanjali) along with Divya Pharmacy Limited in its recent press conference launched ayurvedic medicines claiming to be the first ayurvedic cure medicines with 100% recovery within seven days for Covid-19. Taking notice of this announcement, Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga, Neuropathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (Ministry of AYUSH) instructed Patanjali to stop advertisements, and sought from it the name and composition of the medicines, site/hospital where the research study was conducted, protocol, sample size, Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) clearance, Clinical Trial Registry-India (CTRI) registration, result data of the study. In the context, Read More

GRAFFITI #5

With the rapid growth of internet and dilution of geographical boundaries, marketing of products and services through websites and domain names are becoming an increasingly important mode of brand building and channels of commerce for trademark owners. Domain name/website names forms an essential part of the trademark assets and represent the virtual address of an organisation in the internet space in relation to its brand that is the subject matter of such domain name.

The domain names indicating source from Indian jurisdiction is Read More