The Indian law of trademarks is enshrined in the Trade Marks Act, 1999. The Act seeks to provide for the registration of trademarks relating to goods and services in India.
What is a Trademark
Time Incorporated, USA is the registered proprietor of the trademark “TIME” in about 150 countries.
The registration of a trademark confers on the registered proprietor of the trademark the exclusive right to use the trademark in relation to the goods or services in respect of which the trademark is registered.
Trademark Search
Filing and Prosecuting Trademark Applications
A common ground for refusal is likelihood of confusion between the applicant’s mark with registered mark or pending prior mark.
Duration of a Trademark
Anyone who claims rights in a mark can use the TM (trademark) or SM (service mark) designation with the mark to alert the public of the claim.
Use Of Trademarks In Foreign Countries
Trademark rights are granted on a country-by-country basis.
International trademark protection
There is no system as yet wherein a single trademark application is sufficient to protect the trademark right internationally. However, Paris convention* provides certain privileges to member countries in trademark registration. For example, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg have a single trademark registry, commonly referred to as the Benelux Trademark Register. The European Union consisting of 15 countries has adopted its own trademark system, known as the Community Trademark. The African Organization for Intellectual Property (OAPI), a group of African nations, have replaced their national trademark offices with a common trademark office which offers a single trademark registration valid in all of the member states.
Trademarks in India: Law ; Procedure
“Race relations and Law Enforcement in the United States of America”
The spate of deadly shootings by the police in the process of apprehending suspects has led many commentators to suggest a racial undercurrent in the attitude of the police officers. First, there is the white officer versus black victim scenario; black officer versus white victim scenario; black officer versus black victim scenario and black officer versus white victim scenario, (Peruche ; Plant, 2006). The place of racial sentiments in police deadly shootings is not entirely clear as there are competing theories seeking to explain police deadly shootings. Not all the theories share the sentiments of the minorities in the attitude of the police in apprehending black suspects. The major question is to what extent does race impact the way law enforcement officers deal with black suspects in relation to how white suspects are treated?
The writer contends that race may be a factor in the attitude of the police in apprehending black suspects.
There is a growing concern that police officers may be more aggressive in their responses to minority compared to White suspects, (Peruche ; Plant). If there is racial prejudice in a given society, the police force where dominated by the oppressive race as in white race in relation to the oppressed race (black) cannot be free from such prejudice. There is another aspect of culture that is relevant to racial prejudice in policing, cultural sensitivity on the part of the police officers. It is imperative therefore that police officers be trained in cultural diversity and sensitivity from time to time.
The paper will review several incidents of deadly police shootings with a view to identifying a pattern if any and the place of race in the actions of the police officers in the shooting incidents. The police responded, firing 39 shots, killing Johnston and apparently wounding three of their own.
The Place of Race in Law Enforcement
According to the writer, the solution may be in changing the attitude of the police officers themselves.
Apart from the case of Kathryn Johnston, the other victims of the deadly police shooting reviewed in this paper were unarmed and curiously ethnic minorities. There has been the attitude that Police hate blacks. This perception that the police do not like black people is not helped by the aggressive policing strategies employed by the police in disadvantaged African American neighborhoods, (the hood, ghetto etc). A lot of the distrust emanates from media reporting of police handling of African American cases. The case of Kathryn Johnston, the 92 year old woman shot in Atlanta by the police. She had shot into the ceiling before the officers opened fire. This is not an attempt to defend the actions of the police officers.
Some instances of police shootings tend to be indefensible. Curiously enough, it was another racially tainted police fatality. This finding is in consonance with the racial element inherent the deadly shootings of the police. Prior to the Garner case, police shooting was governed by one of four legal excuses for shooting a suspect. The any felony rule excused a police officer who shot at a suspect getting away running away after committing a felony. In the Garner case, Garner brought an action against the police officer and the police department for fatally shooting his son while leaving the scene of a burglary.
There is a variant of deadly police shooting which cannot be blamed on the police because it is induced by the victims themselves. Where three of four citizens are blacks, it follows that blacks are going to form majority of those apprehended by the police in that community. It would also be possible for the police to be very active and engage in aggressive policing strategies if the people in the black community have a huge criminal propensity. Blacks tend to be more violent than other races. Moreover, how reasonable is the allegation of racial bias where the apprehending officers are blacks? The perception of black as violent and aggressive people appears to be the same with black police officers as it is with white police officers.
It is either that the white criminals are too clever for the law enforcement officers or the law enforcement officers know who the criminals are among white people, but choose not to apprehend them. It comes down to the same argument that blacks would commit crimes in a black populated community. This argument when stretched further seems to dispel the racial content in the spate of deadly police shootings. It would appear that each case of deadly police shootings would have to be analyzed on a case by case basis. According to this theory, police officers react to the level of danger they imagine they are in. It then appears to be pure coincidence that more ethnic minorities are involved in deadly police shootings.
; Officer in England and Wales will pull the Trigger, Policing and Society, Vol. 13
Brunson, R. K. (2007) “Police Don’t Like Black People”: African American Young
; Men’s Accumulated Police Experiences, Journal of Criminology and Public
Examination of Police Involved, Victim-Provoked Shootings, Journal of Crisis
Perkins, J. E. ; Bourgeois, M. J. (2006) Perceptions of Police Use of Deadly Force
; Negative Police Experiences, Journal of Criminology and Public Policy