Evergreening of IP Rights Vis-À-Vis Harpic Bottles

Introduction Design rights and trademark protection overlap ever-so-briefly when the “design” of a commodity transcends its aesthetic nature and steps into the shoes of being a source-identifier. However, such evergreening of monopolistic rights has often been denied by Courts. Recently, in Godrej v. Reckitt [1] (“ the Harpic case ”), the Hon’ble Calcutta High Court upheld the tenets of fair competition in the market by refusing to protect the shape and structure of Harpic bottles as...