TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2024 (10) TMI 317
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....he Design No.400027-001. 2. Since the maintainability of this Original Petition would have to be decided first, notice was issued to the official respondent/R4 on 17.04.2024 by this Court. 3. I have heard Mr.Ramesh Ganapathy, learned counsel for the petitioners and Mr.K.Subburanga Bharathi, learned Central Government Standing Counsel for the fourth respondent. 4. The learned counsel for the petitioner, Mr.Ramesh Ganapathy would submit that the above Original Petition is maintainable before this Court. He would fortify his submission in this regard by stating that the Designs Act, 2000 (in short 'Act') is not a complete code by itself and it refers to the Patents Act, 1970. Further, he would submit that there is no express o....
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....ion of the "Patent Office" as referred in Section 74 of the Patents Act, 1970. Section 23 of the Act makes certain provisions of the Patents Act, 1970, applicable to Designs Act. No doubt, prior to the enactment of the present Designs Act, 2000 and the promulgation of the Design Rules, 2000, the Indian Patent and Designs Act, 1911 was in force. Section 51(A) of the said Act runs as follows:- "51A. Cancellation of registration. (1) Any person interested may present a petition for the cancellation of the registration of a design- (a) at any time after the registration of the design, to the High Court on any of the following grounds, namely:- (i) that the design has been previously registered in 2 [India]; o....
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.... (b)that it has been published in India or in any other country prior to the date of registration; or (c)that the design is not a new or original design; or (d)that the design is not registrable under this Act; or (e) that it is not a design as defined under clause (d) of section 2. (2) An appeal shall lie from any order of the Controller under this section to the High Court, and the Controller may at any time refer any such petition to the High Court, and the High Court shall decide any petition so referred." 9. Therefore, on a reading of the above, it is clear that there is a departure from the earlier provision viz., Section 51A of the Act, 1911 which enabled an interested person seeking canc....
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....der Section 27, power to cancel the Registration and to rectify the Register is by way an Application either to the High Court or to the Registrar. 12. Thus in all these enactments, the provisions themselves permit an Application to be filed before the High Court. However, insofar as the Designs Act, even though the earlier Designs Act, 1911 enabled such Application to be filed before the Court, it has been taken away by the Designs Act, 2000 and by incorporation of Section 19, an Application for cancellation of Registration can be made only to the Controller and an Appeal against the the order of the Controller is also made available by approaching this Court. When an appeal is also made available to the aggrieved party by approaching t....