 So good evening, friends. And amongst us today, we have Mr. S.S. Naganand, senior advocate. He's already done various sessions with us, keeping in view the fact that off the cuff, he can take all different topics, not only of law. And the last webinar which we did with him, Law and Literature. And his book on that itself shows the volume. And one day we were discussing that the relevance of religion with law, not only for the purposes of that, but how if you read more of religious books, et cetera, or your insights to understand things, because if we go to the YouTube, we find a lot of what are the inspirational stories, what are the motivational stories from Ramayana, Mahabharata, so on and so on. How that can be relevant, how your mindsets of critical thinking, et cetera, can be learned. And same way with us, we have Mr. Venkat Raghun. His name is again to a famous player. And similarly, his insights of the startups, he has created his own benchmark. And needless to say that just like in the courtroom, once you have a good lawyer who can draft well, the senior is always more relaxed, more poised. He can take things in a much better way, hammer the point in much better way. And when we talk of the interplay between the intellectual property and the startups, we thought there couldn't be better things where two resource persons have their own level of intellectual property, which people try to match in their own way. But everybody they say carries his own space, like in law, what we say. Every pigeon has its own hole. But question is what type of hole at what height he's taken? Both of them have taken the profession in different way and different heights. And similarly, when we thought of startup, we thought there were a lot of requests coming on on the startups. We thought the best session to start with the startup is to the speakers who have created the benchmarks in this aspect. Being a Sunday, we appreciate that you have connected with us. And at the same time, we appreciate that, like in the contract, we say time is the essence of the contract. Same way, we all appreciate that we have to take the sessions in a short and crispy manner. And we couldn't ask better speakers for this short and crisp topic. I would request Sir Naganand to take the thanks forward over to you sir. Good evening Vikas, good evening Venkat. And the host of what shall we say? What shall we call you? Intelligent gathering audience. Because who on a Sunday evening after a hard week, working week, would want to sit down and listen to a lecture on law. The very fact that there are so many of you who are taking the time to come and attend this session and who are going to be seeing it later at your own convenience on YouTube, makes it apparent that we are in an allied company. I often tell my colleagues in my office that lawyers are learned profession, they call it. The only reason is that you have to keep on learning. The minute you stop learning, you seems to be a good lawyer. In fact, I'll start with a small comment which a former Supreme Court judge made to me. I have known him for a very long time. He used to be one of the juniors of my late father. And after he retired, he used to do a lot of real estate work. So one of his former clients went to him said, sir, I'm tied up in a very difficult situation, so I want some advice. So he said, look here, I have reached a stage when I can no longer give you advice. He said, what, sir? You're retired as judge of Supreme Court. How can you say that? You must be knowing all the time. He said, yes, I knew the law. I retired five years ago, but I've not kept myself abreast because I don't read law reports now and I don't keep myself abreast of all the developments that are taking place. Therefore, I have now made myself incompetent to advise you. Then he telephoned to me to say, there is some client like this. I say, he seems to be in some trouble. So you please guide him and advise him. So then that person came to me and of course it is his humility, but nevertheless, what the point I'm making is that we must be clear and aware that the field of law is so vast that unless we really keep running, we are not going to be in the same place. So it's important for us to know the law. It's important for us to apply our mind to new legal provisions that come, new decisions that come, courts have to deal with it. So it is in this background that when I discussed with Vikas, we thought of this topic, the interplay between intellectual property and startups. Now, you see the word intellectual property itself conjures up some kind of a mystic feeling among people. See, if you take a normal lawyer who doesn't have occasion to deal with any of these type of cases, he's often wondering, what is this intellectual property? I've heard of mobile property, I've heard of immobile property, but I'm not heard of intellectual property. So what exactly is it? So intellectual property is something which can be seen, can be felt, can be experienced, can be enjoyed, but you can't hold it in a hand. You know, it is the same expression which Adi Shankaracharya gives to the soul. You know, you can see it because your soul is seeing many things that are happening. You can feel it because when somebody whom you love is next to you, you feel a kind of warmth. If you are devoted to God, that takes you nearer to God. So you feel the soul inside you, but you don't see it. It's not possible to see it. So there is an inference and that in Indian philosophical thought is called Anumana Pramana. That means you establish it by means of inference. So intellectual property is that kind of genre of assets where you have certain rights which are based in intelligence and which are something to do with not the physical world. It is something to do with the name. It is something to do with your right of creativity. It is something to do with exactly how you're going to benefit from what you have yourself created. Now we'll come a little later to some details and nuances of what is intellectual property and how it can be protected, what are the types and et cetera. Those are matters of details. But it's important for us to know that in the context of a startup, a startup is a new company which comes up with a new idea. It comes up with somebody who is not a very experienced entrepreneur who doesn't have money bags next to him. He has a great idea. He has motivation and he says, I'm going to start this company. Now they are at a disadvantage compared to the existing businesses. But we all have seen now that India has been the largest incubator of startups today and the kind of unicorns that are coming up every other day that we see the IS number in Bangalore makes us feel that there is a great potential here. So these startups, they have to maintain a kind of an exclusive and a competitive advantage. If you start with a great idea, if that idea goes to everybody else, then it ceases to be a great idea because you're going to have a lot of people running behind it. Second thing is these rights help you to generate income. So you really need to conserve it and make sure that these ideas which you have, these rights which you have which law recognizes, you should be able to turn it into revenue. And the third thing is, there are always people who copy if I write a beautiful novel, somebody else is going to just try to take excerpts from it, copy it and then print it and say, this is my novel. So you must somehow prevent that because this is your right, it is yours, you have started it and therefore you need to protect it. The next and most important thing is, a person who incubates a company, invariably not somebody who has all the money necessary to be invested in it. So you've got to have investors. So when investors come, they also should be clear that this is a company which protects me, which protects the knowledge of the company. And lastly, it is important for you to maintain the integrity of your business because business secrets and business plans are very, very important. So this is the starting point as to why IP protection is very important for startups. Now what is this IP protection that we're talking about? Now there are different types of intellectual property. I'll just name them. One is a copyright. Copyright is a original expression. If I sit down and write a poem, if I sit down and write a book, I author a book or I make a painting, these are original expressions of my thought. There's a protection given to that. The other one is trademark. Supposing I start a very catchy kind of a name, I think of a fantastic name for a product which I'm going to start, like Apple came, Apple has nothing to do with computer, but Apple has now become synonymous with computer. Google also, the world itself means something else, but it is today universally recognized as a search engine. So these words, these symbols, these names, they are all associated with a particular type of business and a particular type of goods or services. Therefore, they are important rights. The next one is patent. Now a patent is a thing which covers an invention. Now you see, when the electricity was invented and an electric bulb was made, the person who invented it, he thought of an idea, he experimented it and he translated it into something which is tangible. That is a process that he has discovered. And so that is something which is original and he's entitled. The last one, which is very common nowadays is trade secrets and trade rights. Now in any company, there are always assets which are in soft form. There are procedures. Now, for example, if you want to set up a manufacturing unit for electric motorcycles, you go to a well-reputed company which is already in the field, you get all the information from them, you get their protocols, you get their parts, you get a host of things that are needed. All these are trade secrets which are belonging to the company which has developed over a period of time. It is important for them to look after this and this is another aspect. And the last one is, there are a number of contracts that we enter into in the course of business. And in those contracts, we must make sure that supposing I employ a person and I tell him you work in this such and such a field in my company and you give him all the know-how that the company has got, give him access to the database and all the information that we have. He must be bound by a contract to ensure that he is not going to misuse that. So these are the protections that are needed for IP rate. Now, what is a copyright? Section 14 of the Copy Rate Act of 1957 gives an expression of what it is. And it is any artistic work that is created or literary work. Now, any artistic or literary work means it could be a painting. It could be as something in the writing. It could be in any language. It could be graphic. It could be anything which you create. There is no copyright in an idea. If you think of a sunrise, you write a book on sunrise. Somebody else cannot, you can't prevent someone else writing another book on sunrise because sunrise is an idea. But the words I used to describe the sunrise when I put it down in writing, that is copyright. So once you have a registration, now copyright registration is not mandatory in the sense that even without a registration, you still have protection of the law. If you have registration, it would be additional way of proving that you are really the owner of it. Now, what happens if you have a protection of a registration and a copyright is that nobody else can reproduce it. If I make a short film of say five minutes on some topic and I put it on YouTube or give it to some commercial person to exploit it, someone else cannot just copy it. And in the good old days, these Hindi movies, people used to go inside with a small recorder and record a song and then duplicate them. Of course, they're very crude, but that's how copyright infringement started taking place. Same thing with novels. Famous novels, Jeffrey Orcher and Robert Ludlum and all those things. When they come out with the book, one person will buy a book in Middle East somewhere, come to India and in 24 hours, typeset it and print it and sell a Spurrier's edition at one tenth the cost of the original book. So this is nothing but copying. So reproduction is something which is not permissible. Now, when reproduction is not permitted, you cannot make copies and give it to somebody. Same thing with the musical work. Supposing there is a song, a beautiful song, which is made by Ali Raja and somebody else just copies that song and starts making another movie with it or starts producing it as a work for dissemination and for commercial, that is also not permitted. Like this in adaptation, there are some technical terms which I'm not going to go into. Adaptation is making a copy of something which is already existing. So these protections are available to copyright. Now, what happens? What is an infringement? If I have a right, there must be some methodology by which that right can be infringed. So the Copyright Act in section 51 says that if you do something without the permission of the owner, then you are infringing it. And what should happen in the case of infringement is also something which the law itself provides. It can provide for injunctive relief. It can provide for seizing of the violating items and a number of other things. So those are technicalities of enforcing the rights. Now, what is a trademark? Now, I talked the oneness aspect. The trademark is something which is a mark which is capable of being represented graphically and it distinguishes a particular goods or services. For example, you have now Samsung, it's a phone, it's a television, it's so many other products. Now you have Bose, they make speaker systems, headphones, which are varying, so many other products. So these marks, they are associated with certain type of goods and therefore it is a combination. If you see Bose, the way it's written, if you see Apple, the way it is done with a small bite in one side of the Apple, these are the marks, it's a particular color, shape, et cetera. Like Nike, for example, it has a particular type of a way in which a tick is placed. Now, what is infringement? Infringement means you try to copy a well-known mark. Now, I've just put some, when you get to see the PowerPoint, which is prepared by Venkat, you will see Adidas is put as Adimas. Looks the same, very difficult. Adidas is put as Adibas, looks the same. So when somebody is trying to make a product and gives it a name or a symbol which is really looking like the original, then that is called infringement and there are legal requirements as to how you can get protection. The next category of intellectual property rights that we're talking about is a patent right. Now, patent, unlike the other intellectual property rights, you don't have a protection on patent unless you have it registered. So patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention. Of course, there's a whole lot of technical material as to what is an invention, how does it become an invention and is it something which was already in public domain and there's a detailed procedure by which you have to prove novelty, you have to prove that this is something which is not available in domain and there's a product patent and a process patent. Both of them are available. Those are matters of detail. So this is another genre of intellectual property. The trade secrets is a completely different kind of animal. These are a combination of so many things. In any organization, you have a lot of information that has generated. For example, a company like Colgate, it has market information about which type of customers are buying it, what is their age group, how do they buy it, where do they buy it? This is all information about how business is done. And this is also very important because if somebody breaks into these trade secrets, then it is possible for him or them to exploit the situation. Now there are also conflicting things about free trade and restrictions. Now you see intellectual property rights, if I own something and I put a covenant saying somebody should not use it, is it not a restriction on the right of invention by somebody else to carry on business with somebody else? There's a kind of a tug-of-war between the two. Therefore, there are a number of definitions. One of the definitions is that trade secret is information having commercial value, which is not in public domain and for which reasonable stakes have been taken to maintain secrecy. So the example I was giving you in Colgate about marketing information, about customer choices. These are all inside information, which is not available anywhere. So same way related to in the trips, also trade related intellectual property rights also, there are some essential conditions as to what are intellectual property rights which are in the nature of trade secrets and there are detailed analysis of it and description of it. Now when a startup starts, what is it that a startup is supposed to do? How is it supposed to work? What are the problems that it has got? You see, first is you must identify your intellectual property. Supposing I'm a new, I've got a patent on a product and I want to start a company. So then you must protect that. So you must identify it. Then you must look after registrations because as I told you copyright registration not mandatory, patent registration is mandatory. And so far as the trademarks are concerned, you can have a passing of action if it is not registered. You can have an infringement action if it is registered. So it is important for startups to play, apply their mind to registration. Then it also has to supposing a startup is going to get an intellectual property from somebody. You have to do a due diligence. You must really find out whether that person has got that right or he does not have that right. One very important aspect of intellectual property universally acknowledged is the territoriality. Supposing I have a trademark and I register it in India and the same product somebody else manufactures somewhere else with the same name and the same type, will there be a protection? There's a very famous case in the Australian Supreme Court dealing with a case called Conagra. The product was manufactured in America. It was kind of a vegetable product. And the same, the competitor started a business in Australia. The question arose since that company had no business in Australia, would there be an infringement? And of course, there are conflicting views on what is trans-border reputation. But nevertheless, trademark law is territorial in action. So if you have a trademark registered in India, it doesn't mean you get worldwide protection. If you're doing business in some other country, you need to go and get a registration there also. In that sense, it is territorial. In another sense, it is also universal in the sense that because of the cross-border reputation and the way in which information is flowing now, it is possible to have some kind of a cross-border reputation. One typical case is a Supreme Court decision in Toyota versus Pryas. A company in India was making a, the name of the company was Pryas Auto. Pryas is a brand name of one of the products which Toyota company makes. So there was a tussle. The court finally had to decide, say, yes, well, maybe Pryas is a car which manufactured by Toyota. Toyota is an internationally well-known brand. But they didn't have the presence in India when these people started the business. Therefore, there was no question of infringement because that brand itself was not available in India. So though there is this concept of cross-border reputation, the concept of business in that territory is something which is very, very important. I now come to a few interesting cases. I'm going to deal with just a few of them in the time that is available to me in the next three or four minutes. Then I'll pass the baton on to my young colleague, Pinkat. Now, this presentation is going to give you just a few cases, just picked here and there. And you'll get an idea of the flavor of the problem, not the entire jurisdiction. Now, often it does, there is an e-commerce. Where does the transaction take place? Now, you are sitting in Bangalore. You are placing an order on Tata Nu. They are somewhere in Cyberworld. Their product is available in Bangalore. But you're making a payment to Bombay and you're paying through a card which is probably issued in America or India or wherever it is, if you're a foreigner, it might have been issued in some foreign country. So where does this transaction takes place? Now, the courts have had to grapple with this and this judgment of the Delhi High Court deals with the question and lays down that the transaction takes place over the internet where the contract is concluded. So carrying on business is one thing. Where the business is fractified into something is another thing. So that is how in that case the question arose whether the court had jurisdiction to deal with it or no because the argument was nothing took place here. So how can you come here? So this is one aspect which is causing a problem in the Cyberworld. So where the transaction is actually taking place. Now, another aspect which often comes up is a sale of counterfeit goods on e-commerce platforms. Now, you see, if suppose somebody is printed books illegally and selling on the streets of Bangalore in MG Road or some place like that is busy commercial area, pirated books. The police can go see those books and then catch hold of that person who's selling it and say, well, you're infringing it. But how do you do that with a person who has no physical presence? E-commerce companies don't have any physical presence. They ever wear out somewhere, they have an agreement with somebody. In such a case, where exactly is it that this position is that how do you find out in e-commerce transactions as to who are sellers? So there's a big discussion about who is a direct seller, who is an intermediary. So this is also one aspect which needs to be borne in mind which is causing a problem because the law has not kept pace with these type of transactions. Now, another aspect which comes up is relating to domain name. Now, you see, Satyam Informa was a company. They had a company called SIFE, S-I-F-Y. Those are quite a famous domain name. They used to provide email connectivity and other things. Now, somebody tried to duplicate it. And of course, that case went through a very torturous course of action. It went to civil court, then it went to high court, then it went to Supreme Court. But finally, the Supreme Court had to look at the question as to, though there is no law relating to domain name, which protects, it is in the category of a trade secret or a trade name, which can be protected. So now in Bangalore, we have a famous food company called MTR, originally it was called Mawali Tiffin Rooms, a small restaurant very close to the Lal Bagh Central area of Bangalore. They're very famous for South Indian snacks. Now, it became so distinctive that any visitor who came to Bangalore would say, sir, I want to go to MTR, it is very famous. Now, MTR become a household name because they were diversified into pre-packaged food and it's available everywhere and they have a brand now. Now, before that situation arose, would somebody else use the word MTR? If they started using the word MTR, what was the effect of using that? That is what the Supreme Court had to deal with SIFE and Supreme Court said that there is a particular reputation that has been built up by SIFE. And that reputation is something which can be protected. There are a few more cases which I request Venkat to deal with it. And he's going to talk to you also about the rest of the presentation relating to some very new ideas, new concepts which deal with this current business world. In the good old days, if somebody has to start a business, he'll go and say in a commercial place in Bangalore city, I want to start a grocery store. He'll locate a place, he'll buy items and he'll source everything, open a store and he'll put prices and people would go and buy there. Today, the system of business is completely gone. See, 90% or more of people are buying groceries online now. So the thing is everything, the world has changed. So it's no longer a situation where you control everything physically, it has become necessary to control things in the digital world, in the real world, in the virtual world. And the next phase is a meta-verse about which Venkat is going to talk to you. And thank you for patiently listening to me and over to Venkat now to deal with the rest of the case law and the new concepts on which startups ought to be very particularly worried about. Thank you. Thank you, sir, for sharing your knowledge. How do you Venkat? Firstly, thank you so much Vikas for inviting me over to beyond law to deliver this speech and it's indeed such an honor and pleasure to be sharing the stage with Nagan and sir. So just to take over to a few of the concepts. So firstly, I would just like to talk about what are known as dynamic injunctions. So in the case of dynamic injunctions, what happens is once a plaintiff has filed a suit and if he has received an injunction against a particular defendant, then it so happens that if you are not, if you don't know who are the other defendants and eventually once you're aware as to who those defendants are, then in the Delhi High Court, what happens today is you can go before the registrar and you don't have to go through the same cumbersome process of explaining the case, going through the entire case all over. So what you can do is you can go to the registrar and just explain the same case on which you've already got an injunction and you can have the same injunction actually even against the new defendant as well. So you can pretty much say that dynamic injunctions are almost in the line of John Doe orders. Now in John Doe orders, as most of you may know, what happens is it generally happens in the digital world where the defendants are not known at all. So once you get a John Doe order, it can be enforced against anyone and everyone where the defendants are not known. So that is a John Doe order. Now another concept which I would like to maybe talk about are rogue websites, which was again established by the Delhi High Court. Now what is a rogue website? Basically rogue websites are websites which are constantly promoting and constantly having any infringing material on them. So there have been various case laws also as to whether to take in the qualitative approach or at least a quantitative approach in deciding whether a website is rogue website and hence whether the website has to be bought down. When one of the recent case laws in Eros International Media versus Bharat Sanchar, the Bombay High Court in this case took a quantitative approach and it held that since there were quite a few large number of infringing material, it decided to bring down the website. Later on the Delhi High Court in the Department of Electronics and Information Technology case, actually here it took a qualitative approach and it held that if you don't remove even the website just because it is hosting just one single content, if you don't bring down the website then it is going to use just that and actually try to mask and still go on to have the website. So even if there is one single infringing material, the court has held that it has to be bought down because that one single material was enough to actually cause a lot of damage. So that was the position held by the Delhi High Court. So now firstly, I would just want to talk about since we are focusing on startups here, just would like to highlight some of the important things that one has to take note of while having a startup as a lawyer, what are the things that one has to take care of? One of the things is a non-disclosure agreement. Now a non-disclosure agreement, what happens is when you're going to an investor, any prospective investor, it is very important to have an NDA in place, to say that all right, what I'm sharing with you will not be used. And of course, you go to multiple investors and whichever investor you're happy with, based on mutual agreement, you go ahead. In case of non-NDA also, it so happened that there's a very famous case in Bangalore where Pearson, it was all over the internet, it's all over covered in the media as well. Where in one of the companies went to Pearson, it was an educational based company and shared their idea with them. And it so happened that they have reverse engineered the software and then it is put up on the website eventually and the case was filed against them and an induction was also obtained. So an NDA is a very important document hence to have with any investor to safeguard your rights, to safeguard your IP because you're discussing with different investors. So that's very, very essential. The other agreement I would say is a founders agreement. Now, what happens is they might be two, three, four, five with different founders in a particular company. So it's very, very important to have a founders agreement in place so that in case any one of them decide to part ways or in case of any unfortunate mishap of a debt or even in case of a retirement for whatever reasons, how would the IP be held? How would the IPs be enforced? How would the company continue to function? All those things would be captured in a founders agreement and one of the things which I have which I really highlight to the founders is having an arbitration clause because the last thing you want is going to the court and getting dragged and somebody getting an injunction and the entire company coming to a standstill. So at any point of time if they can also be a mutual understanding where an injunction may not be obtained that would also generally help but of course there's a gray area in that particular aspect as well but it's very important to have an arbitration clause and also most importantly, how would the IPs continue to function? How would the IPs be held by the other continuing partners? All those points has to be captured in the founders agreement and depending on the background of the company, each agreement it differs. Then of course you have a shareholder's agreement wherein what is the equity that has to be held by each of the founders, the directors of the company that has to be formed. Then you have different kind of employment agreements like when the directors are employing people it's very, very important to have it very clearly written that even though of course there are provisions of law under the copyright act but it is best that it is captured saying that whatever work that is found during the course of employment all the IPs vest with the company. So generally if you have an offer letter you have an appointment letter you have a non-disclosure agreement. Today also you can enforce a competition anti-competitive practices as well. For example, if there is any of the employees of yours who are joining a competitor company you can actually have a clause in your appointment letter saying that for a period of three years of course any agreement in recent trade is void but in this case you can actually have a gap of three years and two years and the high court has held it it's a very reasonable clause to have and you can stop that way your employee from joining your competitors company. So these are some of the important agreements to have as a startup. Now as Sir mentioned about metaverse so some of the technologies which I would like to discuss here for the benefit of all maybe some of them I already been knowing some of them it must be new. These technologies today for us is extremely important because the entire legal fraternity needs to know because pretty much all the other businesses will be relying on these technologies. So the first one to talk about is a blockchain. Now what is a blockchain? If to give a more practical example if any of you are familiar with DocuSign because many of us use DocuSign to sign documents maybe for example Lagan and Sir he's traveling to different places he needs to sign a document maybe today he's in US tomorrow he's in UK. So DocuSign can be used today to sign the document and a blockchain technology basically is a technology wherein you can trace each and every act and which is accountable. So that is a blockchain you have a private blockchain you have a public blockchain. Now something like a DocuSign is a private blockchain where of course the details are closely held. Public blockchain maybe like even like say the patent office all the details for example if I have to go and conduct a search on the patent website if the patent office which of course the DocuSign are there to actually enforce blockchain technology in our patent office then the entire detail is out in the public and of course we can go there and we can access that but blockchain helps in maintaining traceability. So that is how blockchain is more robust that is one of the things. Second thing is Metaverse. Now what is Metaverse? Now Metaverse is a combination of both augmented reality and virtual reality. Now what is augmented reality? What is virtual reality? Now to give you more practical examples virtual augmented reality is where today we are having live space, we are having homeland maybe you want to do interiors for your house. So they give you what is known as a 3D render. So those 3D render I can say is augmented reality. Now what is virtual reality? If you actually go into the house if you're able to actually go into your own house of course it's all in the virtual world and you're able to actually feel and talk and actually feel things. So that is virtual reality. So Metaverse today we're entering into a area of Metaverse wherein for example if I'm in India and say I would want to buy a house in Dubai. So I can actually shake hands with the salesperson. I'm sitting right here in Bangalore wearing the headsets, gear, God knows what else devices I'm required to wear but the technology is getting there wherein I can actually talk, shake hands, go touch, feel things, everything. So that is Metaverse. So we are actually getting there. Another technology maybe I would like to discuss here is NFTs because all of us keep hearing about non-fungible tokens, NFTs. Now NFT is a type of blockchain. Now another example maybe practical example if I can give of NFT is fan craze. We are all watching IPL, I'm sure all of us most of us are India's a big fan of cricket and I'm sure that many of us are following IPL. In the ads if you see there's a company known as fan craze in which I think Hardik Pandya and I think Rohit Sharma comes in that ad. So NFT, what is NFT? NFTs are basically an artwork which is stored in a digital form. So this fan craze what they're doing is for example, Dhoni hit a six and to win the World Cup only that particular portion maybe which is around 10 seconds, 15 seconds or more. It is stored in a digital token and it is sold to you. It is sold to you at a price. So people collected today it can be this tomorrow it can be any painting which is worth in millions there's so many big painters like MF Hussain of India maybe few other paint painters who actually sell these paintings at a huge cost it can be stored in a digital token. So that is NFTs. So in case of fan craze they're actually selling this if you go on to their website you actually they have this selling for $400, $300 for a particular amount. So you actually store them. So these are NFTs. So mostly now who holds the copyright in the NFTs is again a very interesting area. See because now again in the case of fan craze who holds the copyright? It should be the BCCI because BCCI is the one who's given the broadcast rights to Hotstar. They're the ones who have given the various rights to different people using IPL, broadcasting IPL even using recorded versions of IPL, highlights of IPL and pretty much everything even all the dream league all the ads that you see pertaining to IPL all the rights has to be taken from BCCI. So these are some of the technologies which I wanted to highlight. I think we're just running close to 640. So maybe perhaps I will leave the room open for more questions now and give it back to Vikas. Ove Selineva's publication of an advertisement of the brand slash mark in the magazine circulated all over the world. Who do we presume that use? Sir, can I take that question sir? So basically, yes, it can be taken as use because what's happened in the recent Toyota judgment is that though of course it focuses saying that the use has to be in India certain observations were made also in the same case as to what are the factors that has to be taken into consideration to constitute to use in India. Now there are two aspects to this question. If you're saying circulated all over the world but not used in India then what would amount to use in India is the first question according to me. If it is used all over the world but not in India then there are certain factors laid down like we are constantly traveling across the world today like we have brands like Ferrari we have brands like Maserati but these are all very well known Italian brands. So of course you also see very less of Ferrari here maybe if I can talk about any of the brands which are there in foreign country but not here but because of constant travel due to magazines, due to circulations, due to advertisements, where you're familiar but if it is not being used here even that would constitute as use but otherwise just the mere fact of using it in India in any form even as small as an Instagram post or even a Facebook post constitutes use in India. So these are two aspects of use which I have covered. I can just supplement that. I just want to supplement that. This has been a constant kind of a problem in many trademark litigations where one pertains and says that the product is not available here, it is not used here. So the question is what is the use? How much should be used? Is one sale or one copy is enough? Supposing in the Toyota Priya's case if Toyota had sold its Priya's car say two cars that sold in India in the last two years was that sufficient? So this is always a very what shall I say a ticklish question to answer about use when it comes to repetition. True, very true. Then go to the next question if there's So there's one only question on the YouTube so it's in a broader way but it says could you explain this John Doe concept? I think John Doe injunctions there was an invention of the judiciary. You see you can only file a suit against a known defendant in the civil procedure court. So if your neighbor is coming and every day tying his cow inside your land you can then file a suit against him to say my neighbor should keep his cows inside his land. Why is he coming and allowing them to graze in my land and he's tying them up in my land? He's infringing my rights. So you can file a case. But supposing every day in the night somebody comes in the night, you don't know who it is he ties one cow into your land and he goes away. You can't obviously file a case against a cow. You have to file a case against somebody. So if you go to court to say every night I'm finding some cow being tied here I chase it away in the morning. I want this nuisance to stop. So therefore prevent it. Then who will you sue when you don't know the defendant? That was the problem which was faced which used to be the problem with many of the trademark actions. See you know that somebody is infringing. You go to a particular place, you find all the books and you go to catch him the manager just throw everything there and run away. Okay so on the street you will find a pile of books which are pirated. You want to sue somebody you don't know whom to sue because there's no printer's name there's nothing there, there's some guy on the road he knows he's gonna get caught so he'll run away from there. So in situation like that the courts invented a system of a fictional name. This John Doe is a fictional English person. It's just an English name like Vikas Chatharath. He doesn't Mr. Chatharath exists but John Doe doesn't exist. So you put in a fictional name like John Doe in the first case that was what was done. The guy said there's a guy here I don't know who really is but I'm putting his name as John Doe give me an injunction court granted the injunction. What Venkat was explaining was the daily I court is now improved on it by saying that if you do get an injunction against an unknown defendant then whoever infringes that order amenable to condemn when you find when you know the real person who's doing it supposing in the illustration is giving you he runs away the police catch him in some other place and he's identified as the same person who was selling the books here then you can put his name and say lucky I got a John Doe order this the man who's now the culprit who's doing it so grant me an injection against him. So that is how the improvisation has taken place in law but John Doe orders have got popularity because of the first case where they use the word John Doe that's all it is. It is just like in the habeas corpus sometimes we say it's a roving investigation to bring that person around and then you array the person who had kept in an illegal custody. This thing or in a lighter way and they say it is more like a LIC policy which you cannot cherish during your life. And only the person to who are the nominees would enjoy it. Yeah. Then is there any period of registered patent without any industrial use and view of the proliferation of the registered patent without industrial use? Yes, for patent registration if you have a registered patent it is valid you don't need to use it. It is a restrictive registration unlike trademark see in a trademark supposing I take a trademark registration for a particular product let's say a pen I have you know got a name for a pen column I give it name and it's a I have a trademark registration. I start business after six months something happens and I stop my business for two years or three years I don't do any business then somebody else in some other place in Lucknow starts another business to say column then when that person's name become very famous and he starts selling large number I wake up and I say hey I've got registration name of column how can you use it? The answer there quotes have taken the view even if you have a registered mark if you have not used the mark and somebody else who won a fight he started using the mark a registered owner of a trademark cannot get an injunction. That's the thing with so far as trademark but patent it's not like that patent is an invention and the minute you have got an invention and it is proved and you've got a registration in your name you need not manufacture the product but if somebody else manufactures it you have a right to cause of action against it. Rekha do you want to add anything? Absolutely correct sir just one small addition there is something known as a working of patent which is required to be filed so basically over and above what sir has already mentioned so we just need to file what is known as a working of patent before the patent office to show that how your patent has been constantly worked so that's the only requirement under patent law but as sir mentioned yes once you have got the patent nobody can actually use it and you can file a suit for patent infringement the only difference between patent and trademark is unfortunately in case of a patent unless it is granted you can't file a suit for infringement but in trademark you can still file a case for passing off even though you don't have a registered trademark so that's the difference. This is startups often fall a victim to the trademark bullying what are the measures what do you advise to stay safe? Who's bullying whom is the question? Most of the time the startups are bullying the big people that's my experience I'm sure Rekha will also bear with that you see that was the first thing which I thought about also because big basket case as you know so it so happened that we all know but I would not like to name it of course due to privacy reasons but there was a legal notice sent from the law firm of Big Basket to a startup which was also having a similar basket name I'm not going to name that as well so what happened was this startup put the legal notice all over the internet and pretty much it was all over the place which was according to me not the apt way to do it there is a certain way if you are not happy go to the court approach the court and then directly handle it in a proper legal way which process allows so as sir was laughing and I completely agree so this what happened was eventually it heard the image of Big Basket of course I'm not going to give my opinion whether Big Basket was right or whether the startup was right but at the same time it is not the right way to do it since we are talking about trademark bullying but yes of course big companies generally are very protective about their trademark that's why customers like that go for Apple or go for Bose as the sir is using because they are all very expensive products and there is a certain reason there is a constant pressure so in my experience at least I don't see any big companies getting into trademark bullying at all they are very protective but it may come off as trademark bullying it depends on interpretation it's selective interpretation but in my experience no large companies are into trademark bullying or would like to get into trademark bullying they only want to safeguard to maintain exclusivity of their brand in the market which they have every right to I think I agree with Bekkat entirely you see the thing is that if you if the startup has got its own legal right it has got then it should pursue the legal remedies maybe you are fighting a David and Goliath case but nevertheless you have to fight somewhere if you think that your intellectual property is superior to a big company you must fight it and make good that you must have the capacity to fight it you must have the merits to fight it you can't issue a legal notice and then plaster it all over the internet and media and social media everywhere and spoil the name of the company ultimately if you succeed if you fail what happens so I think I also tend to agree I have not come across big companies unnecessarily targeting small companies or startups just for the sake of putting them out of business because the big companies they are not worried about competition they are worried about fair competition they are worried about protecting their name their improvement of their business but if somebody is infringing they will take action this is what is mining in blockchain Venkat mining in blockchain mining is nothing called as mining in blockchain data mining is different blockchain is different data mining is where for example using say for example someone's Facebook LinkedIn all your internet presence you mine and you actually have a personality of yourself whether you are somebody who parties a lot somebody who is more going into whatever I mean like depending on your the pictures which you put up so a certain personality is developed about you so that is data mining so data mining is different blockchain is different these two are entirely different from each other that question has another limp to it as I see it on the screen some Mr. Gokuldas Vasu he says that you said that an employee can be restrained from joining a competitor can you provide the citation yeah I'll give you one case of course it's not a reported judgment some 25 years ago the very big software company again I can't name the company it had a senior employee who was then head of software development in that company he was a privy to all the work that the company had done in that particular field that's one secondly he had access to all the correspondence that had ensued in the process of developing that software with the leading client of the company now when this person left he tried to make use of that and block all that information and take away some of that information so we filed a suit and fortunately for us even some 15, 20 years ago the court appreciated that and granted an injunction restraining him from using any of this material restraining him from accessing the company's websites and other data that he held now because of these type of actions what has happened is recently I was looking at a document which was some 15 page document a person was working in a fairly senior capacity and he wanted to quit the company and for whatever other reasons there was no dispute but the company said well we'll be happy to relieve you but you've got to sign this document the 15 page document in which he gives a covenant to say I have not kept any of the company information with me I assure you that I will not use any information that has come to me I will not fire a case against the company if I have a dispute I'll go for arbitrary like this one million conditions were there so the lawyer on record spoke to me said sir these kind of conditions are there should my client sign it so I told him I said see this become the order of the day because companies want to protect their data and information and they're putting all these clauses and they're putting an arbitration clause in it now that means they want to prevent employees from misusing the information see many times employees are given a laptop they're given access to computers databases of the companies all of this is valuable information so the companies need to protect it anyway I told them there are some conditions we support that say you can't go to court I said those clauses are not enforceable in law you can't give a covenant to say I will not sue you obviously the law gives you the right to sue them you still want to sue them you sue them whether you succeed is another thing so there are concrete cases where courts are interfering and granting injunctions but most of these are in the confidential realm so you probably will not get direct access to those cases unless you handle them but the law is fairly well settled that confidential information can be protected by injunctive beliefs the contract part the terms and conditions for that you know it very well section 23 of the contract I read with that Brujanath's judgment celebrated judgment and for this part Venkat would agree probably the judgment of Prasept India versus Ahir Khan where the advertisements came into being then they said that what are the clauses you cannot do and a lot of companies they also say that for good three years you cannot coach the employee and the same way the employer will not be able to move forward correct and exactly it was held that what is a reasonable restriction so if the restriction is reasonable to protect the confidentiality to protect the integrity of the company then yes it is absolutely fine it would not be against the restraint of trade and hence it was held as valid and that person was stopped from joining the competitor company absolutely right yes yeah so thank you sir few suggestions Mr. Kamra has given I felt that everybody has written it on the chat box so thank you Nagaranser for helping us to connect with Venkat Raghavan we have seen Venkat Raghavan playing on and off the field on the field his performance in the cricket you all know insofar as for the intellectual properties based as they say that you can always create a space within space so both have created their spaces within their own fields and thank you Mr. Venkat it was a pleasure connecting with you everyone stay connected and on 4th we will have the role of a accomplice with Justice Sunil Thomas a former judge of Kerala High Court at 6pm everyone stay safe stay safe stay blessed Namaskar Namaskar thank you sir thank you