Mumbai University Solved Question Papers
Law of Industrial Designs GI Layout Designs Data Protection and Trade Secrets
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
LLM · Group 3 Law of Intellectual Property and Information Technology
2015 Examination
munotes.in
Mumbai
First published on munotes.in on 14 September 2026.
Published by munotes.in, Mumbai.
Model answers written and edited by the munotes.in editorial desk.
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The University does not publish an official answer key for this paper. The answers in this volume are model answers, written to show how a full-mark answer is built. They are a study aid, not an authority on what an examiner marked.
The question paper reproduced here is the paper as set by the University of Mumbai at the 2015 examination.
The law in these answers is stated as at September 2026, and four changes date most textbooks on this subject. The Intellectual Property Appellate Board was abolished with effect from 4 April 2021, so appeals under the Geographical Indications Act now lie to the High Court, while the Layout-Design Appellate Board was never constituted and its sections, like the provision naming that Board as a stand-in, were never brought into force, so that Act has no appellate body at all. Since 1 August 2024 falsely representing a geographical indication as registered has been a penalty imposed by an officer of the Registry rather than an offence. India acceded to the Locarno Agreement with effect from 7 September 2019. And the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 commences in stages, its main duties applying from 13 May 2027.
The questions below are the paper as the University of Mumbai set it at the 2015 examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2015 examination, reproduced as the University of Mumbai set them, in the order it set them. Nothing has been reworded, added or left out. Only the answers are ours. See the original question paper.
Duration 3 hours · Total marks 100 · 6 questions answered
How to use this volume
Solve the paper first, under exam conditions and against the clock. Then read the answers here and mark your own. Reading a solution before attempting the question feels productive and teaches very little, because recognising an answer is not the same as being able to write one.
Answer
For full marks, cover: the paper asks three separate questions and the marks are spread across all three. JUSTIFY protection with reasons, not slogans. Give the SALIENT FEATURES of the Act of 2000 section by section. Then set out the DIFFERENCES from the Designs Act, 1911 in a table, and explain the three that changed the law most: the definition, worldwide novelty, and the defence of invalidity in a piracy suit. Bharat Glass Tube and Crocs carry novelty; Rajesh Masrani carries the definition.
What a design is worth. An industrial design is the appearance of a mass-produced article: its shape, configuration, pattern, ornament or composition of lines and colours. It is not what the article does but how it looks. In a market full of products that work equally well, appearance is very often the reason a customer picks one over another, and the law protects it for that reason.
First reason: appearance sells, and copying is cheap. Creating a new look for a water bottle, a washing machine or a tyre tread takes research, testing and money; copying it takes a mould. In Cello Household Products v. Modware India, AIR 2017 Bom 162, Cello's PURO bottle had achieved sales above seven crore rupees within six or seven months, and a rival then launched a bottle indistinguishable in shape, configuration and surface pattern, down to the two-tone colours. Without a design right the first maker bears the whole cost and the copier takes the profit.
Second reason: the other intellectual property rights do not fit. A patent protects a new and inventive technical solution, not an attractive shape. Copyright protects artistic works, but section 15(2) of the Copyright Act, 1957 ends copyright in an unregistered design once the article has been reproduced more than fifty times by an industrial process, as the Delhi High Court explained in Microfibres Inc. v. Girdhar & Co., 2009 (40) PTC 519 (Del) (DB). A trade mark protects a badge of origin, which a new design usually is not. Industrial designs therefore need a registration system of their own.
Third reason: fair competition and consumer choice. Protection rewards the firm that differentiates its product, pushes rivals to create their own designs rather than copy, and gives consumers a genuine choice of appearances. Because the right lasts only a limited time and then enters the public domain, it rewards creation without freezing the market.
Fourth reason: international obligation. India has been a member of the World Trade Organisation since 1 January 1995, and as a developing country it had to apply Articles 25 and 26 of the TRIPS Agreement from 1 January 2000, under Article 65. Article 25.1 requires protection for independently created industrial designs that are new or original, and Article 26.3 requires protection for at least ten years. The Designs Act, 2000 was India's response.
The Act in outline. It is Act 16 of 2000, assented to on 25 May 2000 and brought into force on 11 May 2001 by S.O. 414(E). Its 48 sections are arranged in eleven chapters, running from registration of designs and copyright in registered designs through exhibitions, legal proceedings and the powers of the Controller to repeal and savings. Under section 3 the Controller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks is the Controller of Designs, assisted by examiners, and the Designs Rules, 2001 supply the procedure.
1. A precise definition of design, section 2(d). Features of shape, configuration, pattern, ornament or composition of lines or colours, applied to any article in two or three dimensions or both, by any industrial process or means, which in the finished article appeal to and are judged solely by the eye. Expressly excluded are any mode or principle of construction, anything that is in substance a mere mechanical device, trade marks, property marks and artistic works under section 2(c) of the Copyright Act. "Article" in section 2(a) includes a part capable of being made and sold separately.
2. Registrability, sections 4, 5 and 35. Section 4 bars a design that is not new or original, that has been disclosed to the public anywhere in India or in any other country before the filing or priority date, that is not significantly distinguishable from known designs or their combinations, or that contains scandalous or obscene matter. Section 5 requires examination before registration, and section 35 allows refusal of a design contrary to public order or morality.
3. Registration by class, sections 5(3) and 6. A design may be registered in not more than one class, in respect of articles in a class prescribed by the Rules, and the Controller's decision on the class is final. Since the Designs (Amendment) Rules, 2021, rule 10(1) classifies articles under the current edition of the international Locarno Classification, the old Third Schedule having been omitted, and India has been a party to the Locarno Agreement since 7 September 2019.
4. The right and its term, sections 2(c), 5(6) and 11. Registration dates from the application and confers "copyright", the exclusive right to apply the design to any article in the class in which it is registered, for TEN YEARS, extendable by FIVE on application before expiry.
5. Enforcement, section 22. Applying the design or a fraudulent or obvious imitation of it to an article for sale, importing such articles for sale, or knowingly exposing them for sale is piracy. The proprietor may recover up to twenty-five thousand rupees for each contravention, subject to fifty thousand rupees for any one design, or sue for damages and an injunction in a court not below that of a District Judge. Under section 22(3) every ground of cancellation is available as a defence, and section 22(4) then transfers the suit to the High Court.
6. Safeguards for novelty. Section 16 provides that a disclosure in good faith, or a first confidential order for a textile design, is not a publication; section 21 protects exhibition at a notified exhibition if the application follows within six months; and section 44 gives six months' convention priority.
7. Loss and revival of the right. Any person interested may petition the Controller for cancellation at any time under section 19, with an appeal to the High Court. A design lapsed for non-payment of the extension fee may be restored within one year under sections 12 to 14.
8. Other features. A registered design binds the Government under section 20; assignments and licences must be in writing and registered under section 30; tying conditions in licences are void under section 42; section 46 protects the security of India; and every appeal goes to the High Court within three months under section 36.
The features at work. In Bharat Glass Tube Ltd. v. Gopal Glass Works Ltd., (2008) 10 SCC 657, Gopal Glass had registered a pattern for figured glass sheets, and a rival petitioned under section 19 on the strength of a German roller-maker's catalogue and a United Kingdom registration print-out. The Supreme Court dismissed the challenge: the burden of proving want of novelty lies on the person seeking cancellation, and what must be compared is the appearance of the FINISHED ARTICLE, judged solely by the eye, not a drawing or a roller.
| Point | Designs Act, 1911 | Designs Act, 2000 |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | "features of shape, configuration, pattern or ornament" | adds "composition of lines or colours", and two or three dimensions |
| Artistic works | not excluded from "design" | expressly excluded by section 2(d) |
| Point | Designs Act, 1911 | Designs Act, 2000 |
|---|---|---|
| Novelty | design "not previously published in India", section 43(1) | disclosure "anywhere in India or in any other country", section 4(b) |
| Classes | same design could be registered in more than one class | not more than one class, section 5(3) |
| Appeal on refusal | to the Central Government, section 43(4) | to the High Court, section 5(4) |
| Cancellation grounds | prior registration or publication in India, want of novelty, section 51A | adds publication in any other country, non-registrability and not a design, section 19 |
| Invalidity as a defence | only once a cancellation petition was pending | every cancellation ground is a defence, section 22(3) |
| Sum recoverable for piracy | up to Rs 500 per contravention, Rs 1,000 per design, section 53 | up to Rs 25,000 per contravention, Rs 50,000 per design, section 22 |
| Term | five years, extendable for a second and a third period of five years | ten years, extendable once by five, section 11 |
The definition was widened and tightened at once. The 1911 definition, reproduced by the Delhi High Court in Rajesh Masrani v. Tahiliani Design Pvt. Ltd., AIR 2009 Delhi 44 (DB), spoke only of shape, configuration, pattern or ornament. The 2000 Act added composition of lines or colours and two and three dimensions, but also excluded artistic works. In that case Tarun Tahiliani's couture fabric prints, never produced in more than twenty pieces, were held to be artistic works outside the definition of design, so the designer kept copyright and obtained an injunction without any design registration.
Novelty became worldwide. Under the 1911 Act a design had to be new and "not previously published in India". Section 4(b) of the 2000 Act makes disclosure anywhere in the world fatal. In Crocs Inc. USA v. Bata India Ltd. (Delhi High Court, Division Bench, 24 January 2019), Crocs' registered clog designs claimed priority from 28 May 2003, but archived pages of Crocs' own website, and of another footwear seller's website, showed the designs in public view in late 2002. The court held the registrations prima facie liable to cancellation under section 19(1)(b) read with section 4(b), and refused interim injunctions against Bata, Liberty, Relaxo and others.
Invalidity became a defence in the suit itself. In Metro Plastic Industries (Regd.) v. Galaxy Footwear, AIR 2000 Delhi 117 (FB), decided under the 1911 Act, the Full Bench held that a defendant sued for piracy could not attack the registration unless he had applied for cancellation under section 51A; only a pending petition allowed the court to weigh the grounds. Section 22(3) of the 2000 Act removed that step: every ground of cancellation under section 19 is available as a defence, and section 22(4) sends the suit to the High Court to decide it.
The remaining weaknesses deserve a paragraph. The statutory sums in section 22(2)(a) have not been revised since 2000. The right is confined to one class, so the same design on a different kind of article is free. There is no pre-grant opposition, so invalid registrations are weeded out only by later cancellation. And the boundary with copyright under section 15 of the Copyright Act, and with passing off, has taken a Supreme Court decision and two Full Benches to settle.
Conclusion. Industrial designs are protected because appearance drives the sale of mass-produced goods, copying is cheap, patents and copyright do not fit, and TRIPS Articles 25 and 26 require it. The Designs Act, 2000, in force from 11 May 2001, defines design precisely, bars registration of anything disclosed anywhere in the world, registers by Locarno class, gives ten years plus five, and makes every ground of cancellation a defence to a piracy suit. Its key departures from the 1911 Act are worldwide novelty in section 4(b), the exclusion of artistic works, single-class registration, appeals to the High Court and far higher recoverable sums, as Crocs, Rajesh Masrani and Metro Plastic show.
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