Court issuing search warrant needs no opinion of Trademark Registrar

Arevision petition was filed by Sanyo Electric Company before the Delhi High Court against an order of the additional chief metropolitan magistrate. The order directed that a search warrant issued by the court under section 93 of the Code of Criminal Procedure should not be executed until the police have obtained the opinion of the Registrar of Trade Marks under the proviso to section 115(4) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999.

The issue

The issue that came to the fore in the petition was whether the proviso to that section of the Trade Marks Act, which qualifies the power of the police to conduct a search at the premises of an alleged counterfeiter or alleged infringer of a trademark by requiring them to seek a prior opinion of the Registrar of Trade Marks, should also apply to a court for a search warrant made under section 93 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The petitioner assailed the impugned order by contending that section 115(4) of the Trade Marks Act should not be applicable to a search warrant issued under section 93 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. This, it argued, was because the Trade Marks Act, 1999 is a special piece of legislation and section 115 of that act is a fascicle of chapter XII of that act, whose application is restricted to the provisions of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 only.

Manisha Singh Nair is a partner at Lex Orbis, an intellectual property practice law firm headquartered in New Delhi