This interview has been published by Anshi Mudgal and The SuperLawyer Team
You have completed your Masters degree from University of New Hampshire School of Law, USA specializing in Intellectual Property Law, Commerce and Technology. What was your motivation to choose this specialization?
I remember taking the ‘Intellectual Property Law’ as a mandatory subject in third year of my law school. I was so intrigued by the subject that I finished the entire course curriculum even before our professor taught it in the class. To further increase my knowledge on the subject I started a diploma course in Intellectual Property Laws at the Indian Law Institute, Delhi and attended the evening classes. I believe my attraction towards fancy colorful logos and brands along with my passion for reading stories and inclination towards dramatics and storytelling attributed to my decision of specialising in Intellectual Property Law.
Starting your career at prominent IP firms like Lall and Sethi and Anand & Anand must have been a rewarding experience. What key lessons did you learn during your time there that significantly influenced your career?
It was an enriching experience to work with two of the prestigious law firms in the field of IP. One of the most important lessons I learnt at the beginning of my career at Lall and Sethi was to be always honest with your clients. I run my present firm ZEAL on the same principles – honesty and integrity. At Anand and Anand, I learnt to handle bulk work and multi-tasking and the importance of billable hours in a lawyer’s life.
Serving as an Intellectual Property Attaché for India at the British High Commission and the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) must have provided valuable insights. Could you share your observations and experiences on how the UKIPO operates differently from the CGPDTM?
At the British High Commission and the UKIPO, I majorly did policy related work relating to Intellectual property. This role was quite challenging as I was contributing to developing policies and engaging with Ministers and high-level officials of both the UK and India. At the UKIPO, I polished my skills in the art of networking. The same holds immense importance to me even today. While each job helped me in building my career and skills, my policy driven role at British High Commission assisted my vision and career path exponentially.
I particularly worked in the international division of the UKIPO which was responsible for serving the British stakeholders in India. My main profile was to assist and launch British businesses and work on their IP portfolios while working on their IP issues with DPIIT (at the policy level) and CGPDTM. I majorly worked with DPIIT and CIPAM instead of CGPDTM during my tenure at UKIPO.
After gaining experience with various firms, you founded your own practice. What initial challenges did you encounter, and how did you navigate those obstacles?
To my surprise, I did not face a lot of challenges after setting up my own practice. On the contrary, I faced a lot of criticism while leaving a prestigious job at the UKIPO. Everyone around me, except for a few people, discouraged me to start my own practice, advising it was a difficult market and I might not be able to survive, especially being a woman with two kids. However, my heart was set on building my own independent law firm. I successfully have been running my own firm for the past five and a half years now (special thanks to my supportive husband).
Six months after I started my own practice, covid crisis devastated the whole world and my newly established business was severely affected and so was my health. However, I bounced back both on the work and health front with the help of my family and my business partner Swati Mehta who joined the firm in 2020 as litigation head. With her joining and setting up of litigation department we expanded and diversified our practice areas significantly.
While advising clients on brand protection strategies and domain name disputes, what key factors do you consider? Can you discuss a time when your advice significantly helped a client?
While advising our clients on brand protection strategies or domain name disputes, we take multiple factors into consideration for instance, statutory and common law rights of the client, how big and important the brand is for the client, infringer’s economic and business strength, for how long the infringer has been in the market and most importantly, the client’s budget.
One of our clients was struggling with getting his trade marks renewed by the Trade Marks Office for almost 2 decades. We advised the client to file a writ petition before the High Court of Delhi and am proud to say that we successfully received a favourable order for our client within merely 2 court hearings.
In another case, {Om Logistics Ltd. vs Sh Mahendra Pandey (CS (COMM) 447/2021)} we (along with Adv. Rahul Ajatshatru and Adv. Gitika Khanchandani) got a prominent order under Order 39 Rule 4. An ex-parte ad interim injunction issued by our client was set aside by the Delhi High Court. The Court held that the descriptive Words/ Religious Symbols/ Names of Deities cannot be monopolized. This order proved to be a significant milestone in field of Intellectual property and is often cited by the Judges while deciding trade marks matters.
Further, in another case {Usha Varia vs Rupinder Kaur & Ors (CS(COMM) 446/2022)}, the Defendants represented by us and Adv. Rahul Ajatshatru were restrained from infringing the Plaintiff’s registered trade mark ‘SAMOOLAM’ and from passing off of Plaintiff’s trade mark and Copyright material.
You have mentioned that you’re an Independent Director at the Phonographic Performance Limited, India (PPL, India). How does your position on the board influence your broader goals and strategies in the IP landscape?
As an Independent Director at the PPL, India, we collectively make sure that piracy is reduced, people get quality music and stakeholders get their dues. Being on the PPL Board assists me to approach the issue of Piracy and illegal distribution of music not only from the legal point of view but also business point of view as well as from the perspective of creators and distributors of music.
You have worked on various IP portfolios of National and International Clients, what has been one of the most interesting issues that you have dealt with that you’d like to share with our readers?
One of the most interesting and recurring issue that keep on resurfacing in most of our matters is unauthorized registration of trade mark by the distributors. The domestic distributors get the registration of the trademark before the original international proprietor can get the trademark registered in India. I have seen this in several matters where the international clients have distributors in India operating for years and got their trademark registered in their own name and the clients are absolutely unaware of such registration for decades until one day they move to a new distributor and are threatened by the previous distributor of being the registered proprietor of international entities’ trade mark in India .
As a member of the Panel for Standardization at the Bureau of Indian Standards, what specific strategies are you advocating to combat piracy in India, and how do you envision these standards impacting both creators and consumers?
Some of the strategies to combat piracy is India would include collaborating with all the stakeholders to ensure that the music is original, flagging websites that infringe copyright, giving proper credits to the creators, framing guidelines to not promote channels/ websites/ domain names that infringe copyright of the creators, creating an infringing website list (IWL) and spreading awareness amongst consumers as well as encouraging them to buy from the original source are few measures that will help both creators and consumers.
In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge stakeholders are facing in the field of intellectual property law specially and what role do emerging technologies play in shaping these challenges?
Some of the biggest challenges that stakeholders face in current IP scenarios include high litigation cost, widespread counterfeiting and piracy, lack of intermediary accountability and fallacious use of AI technology. Emergence of technology can work both as a catalyst for such challenges as well as a preventive tool to deal with them. Another major setback stakeholders are facing is that the technology is fast emerging and changes / progresses every day; however the pace at which the law agencies work is not only at the speed of a snail but also expensive and time consuming. Thus, it would not be wrong to say that infringers are often left unpunished and their illegal businesses (affecting rightsholders’ IP) keep on flourishing contributing immensely to heinous crimes like terrorism, drug and child trafficking etc.
How have accolades like the Indian Achievers Award impacted your career trajectory and the growth of ZEAL Attorneys?
The awards have assisted us in gaining recognition among the existing and future clientele. Getting recognized for the hard work and efforts helps the organization to provide better services to our clients. To be candid, however, client’s feedback and satisfaction matters to us more than the Awards itself.
As a guest lecturer and author of numerous research papers, what core messages do you hope to convey to students and young professionals in the legal field that aspire to become IP professionals in the future?
My advice to the students and young professionals would be that “there is no short cut to hard work”. Success can only be achieved with patience, hard-work and perseverance fuelled by honesty and integrity.
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