Page:Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999.djvu/21

 (2) Nothing in sub-section (1) shall be deemed to require the Registrar to hear the parties before disposing of an application for extension of time, and no appeal shall lie from any order of the Registrar under this section.

65. Where, in the opinion of the Registrar, an applicant is in default in the prosecution of an application filed under this Act, the Registrar may, by notice require the applicant to remedy the default within a time specified and after giving him, if so, desired, an opportunity of being heard, treat the application as abandoned, unless the default is remedied within the time specified in the notice.

66. (1) No suit,—

(a) for the infringement of a registered geographical indication; or

(b) relating to any right in a registered geographical indication; or

(c) for passing of arising out of the use by the defendant of any geographical indication which is identical with or deceptively similar to the geographical indication relating to the plaintiff, whether registered or unregistered,

shall be instituted in any court inferior to a district court having jurisdiction to try the suit.

(2) For the purpose of clauses (a) and (b) of sub-section (1), a “district court having jurisdiction” shall, notwithstanding anything contained in the Code of Civil Procedure,1908, or any other law for the time being in force, include a district court within the local limits of whose jurisdiction, at the time of the institution of the suit or other proceeding, the person instituting the suit or proceeding, or, where there are more than one such persons any of them, actually and voluntarily resides or carries on business or personally works for gain.

Explanation.—For the purposes of sub-section (2), “person” includes the registered proprietor and the authorised user.

67. (1) The relief which a court may grant in any suit for infringement or for passing off referred to in section 66 includes injunction (subject to such terms, if any, as the court thinks fit) and at the option of the plaintiff, either damages or account of profits, together with or without any order for the delivery—up of the infringing labels and indications for destruction or erasure.

(2) The order of injunction under sub-section (1) may include an ex parte injunction or any interlocutory order for any of the following matters, namely:—

(a) for discovery of documents;

(b) preserving of infringing goods, documents or other evidence which are related to the subject-matter of the suit;

(c) restraining the defendant from disposing of or dealing with his assets in a manner which may adversely affect plaintiff's ability to recover damages, costs or other pecuniary remedies which may be finally awarded to the plaintiff.

(3) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1), the court shall not grant relief by way of damages (other than nominal damages) on account of profits in any case—

(a) where in a suit for infringement the defendant satisfies the court—

(i) that at the time he commenced to use the geographical indication complained of in the suit he was unaware and had no reasonable ground for believing that the geographical indication of the plaintiff was on the register; and