Amity Law School, Delhi is hosting its 14th National Moot from Friday, 20th February to Sunday 22 February.

This year’s moot proposition requires participants to have an in depth knowledge of trademarks and anti-competitive agreements.

We will get to see teams representing the following 31 law schools battle it out for glory this year:
1. National Law School of India University, Bangalore
2. NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad
3. Government Law College, Mumbai
4. West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata
5. National Law University, Jodhpur
6. National Law Institute University, Bhopal
7. Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar
8. ILS Law College, Pune
9. Campus Law Centre, Delhi University
10. Law Centre-1, Delhi University
11. School of Law, Christ University
12. Pravin Gandhi College of Law, Mumbai
13. Symbiosis Law School, Pune
14. Symbiosis Law School, Noida
15. Army Institute of Law, Mohali
16. National Law University, Odisha
17. National University of Advanced Legal Studies, Kochi
18. Chanakya National Law University, Patna
19. Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Patiala
20. NMIMS' School of Law, Mumbai
21. Dr. Ambedkar Law University's SOEL, Chennai
22. KIIT Law School, Bhubaneshwar
23. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow
24. City Academy Law College, Lucknow
25. Bangalore Institute of Legal Studies
26. R N Patel Ipcowala School of Law and Justice
27. Amity Law School, Noida
28. Institute of Law, Nirma University
29. Faculty of Law, Allahabad University
30. Department of Law, Punjab University
31. Teerthanker Mahaveer College of Law and Legal Studies, Moradabad

Live reporting to resume at 2.15 pm. Stay tuned, folks.

8.42 pm: 
(Hardeep, with inputs from Gayatri)

Hi, guys sorry for being so late in the day for this update. I know its already 9ish. The researchers test is done and the inaguration is done. Your reporter of the day just reached home. The internet, well, didn't work. Like always, when I have a moot submission. Maybe it's jinxed, but that's for another day. 

The moot was inaugurated by the crème de la crème of law, Our Chief Guest - Hon'ble Mr. Justice A.K Sikri, Judge, Supreme Court of India. Our Guest of Honor -  Mr. P.S Patwalia, Addition Solicitor General and our Guest of Honor -  Mr. Siddharth Luthra, Sr. Advocate. The podium was shared by our Director Sir -  Dr. B.P. Singh Sehgal, our very own Convenor of the Moot Court Committee -  Dr. Isheeta Rutabhasini, our Professor of eminence and Chair Prof. for law -  Dr. M.K Balachandran.

 

The speech of Our Guest of Honor was heard with rapt attention where he shared his experience of his moot court days and said, he still cherished the memory while stressing on the ethical needs of legal industry. Our Chief Guest, Hon'ble Mr. Justice A.K Sikri joked that he wanted to say the same thing and now, like he does while writing judgments, he would have to paraphrase the arguments of the opposite counsels. He commented that an a fresh graduate before arguing before the Apex Court should take some training in the lower judiciary and gain experience before moving to the higher echelons of justice. Siddharth Luthra, our Guest of Honor, also stressed on the value of legal ethics and remarked "you only realize the value of liberty once you lose it!"

The ceremony closed and the memos were exchanged, while the researcher's test was underway. I, on behalf of the whole college, wish all the particiants a good stay and a memorable experience. 

For me, personally, I hope a good internet access! Adios! 

P.S: Tomorrow the rounds start at 10. 

(Gayatri)

So, the team from Allahabad University has backed out. We will see the remaining 30 teams moot in the preliminary rounds tomorrow. See you tomorrow, folks. 

Day 2, February 21, 2015

Your reporters for the day are Hardeep Singh, Gayatri Korgaonkar, Deepali Singhal, Raghav Gaur, Kartik Khanna, Paromita Das and a host of court room reporters. We hope you are enjoying our blog updates. Wish us luck!

10.12 am:

(Hardeep)
Hello good folks. Good morning! We got internet access! Yay!

The teams have arrived and are preparing anxiously, this reporter saw a team member soliloquising his arguments which really took him to his own days. Ah, the nostalgia. Not that I am that old. My co-reporter disagrees. Not that it matters. Really.

Coming back to the moot, the judges are being briefed and we begin soon.
 

10.30 am:

(Gayatri)

The chaos has begun. Preliminary rounds are underway. The first speakers have begun submitting their arguments before the bench in most of the courtrooms. Courtroom 8 faces its first scandal, with a phone ringing to the tune of "Badtameez Dil". 

10.38 am:

(Gayatri)

One of the judges in Court Room No 12 has deflated the confidence of the first speaker from team no 20 by asking for citations of cases. 

10.44 am:

(Gayatri)

Court Room 10 - Counsel for the Appellant strikes a nerve by saying trademark infringement needs to be recognized as consumers with low intelligence will be unable to differentiate between the two trademarks

10.55 am:

(Gayatri)

Court Room 4 - The judge asked the counsel whether Katy Perry could trademark the phrase "this sick beat" from her song. The reporter is fighting the urge to tell him the phrase is in fact from a Taylor Swift song.

Court Room 5 - Counsels for Appellant have cited Indian Kanoon in the table of authorities. Ouch.

Counsel is also unaware of the forum he is approaching! Things are not looking good for this team today.

11.07 am:

Court Room 8 - Researcher for the Appellant had dozed off in the middle of the matchup!

11.12 am:

The proceedings in Court Room 10 are running smoothly, almost buttery. Since the counsels are trying to protect their trademark rights, this reporter's source can't help think of a certain Gulati's Butter Chicken and it's equally drool-worthy competitor Minar. This is probably why the said source was not allowed to take part in the moot. 

Meanwhile, the counsel on the dais seams to be stealing the show, along with a couple of hearts from his newly found, starry-eyed admirers sitting in court.

11.20 am:

(Gayatri)

Court Room 10 - One of our sources suggests that if the counsel for defendant got a dollar for every time she said "umm", they'd have enough money to pay for the amount of post-it notes and hightlighters they've used. BURRRN!

Court Room 1 - Counsel for the respondent said that a Delhi High Court judgement is binding upon Supreme Court. (Yes, this person may just become a lawyer. Tsk tsk tsk!)

11.25 am:

(Gayatri)

Court Room 11 - The moot problem has made the counsel for respondent so hungry that he's eating his own words.

Court Room 10 - On being asked by the judges why the defendants are abusing the dominant position by misleading customers, they contended that it's because, "The average hungry customer does not have the capacity to think straight." This hungry reporter concurs.

Meanwhile, the counsels for the plaintiff are carrying a suitcase full of authorities and commentaries, making law school seem like an expensive book club. 

Court Room 12 is the first one to be done with its matchup, with Court Room 15 finished only slightly behind.

(Paromita Das)

Court Room 10 -

Judge : So you've bought the word "best"?

Respondent : Indeed, your Ladyship

Judge : And "butter"?

Respondent : Indeed, your Ladyship

Judge : And "Chicken"?

Respondent : Indeed, your Ladyship

Judge : And "Murgawala"?

Respondent : Indeed, your Ladyship

Judge :  Why?

Respondent : Indeed, your Ladyship

Court Room 8 - "If the respondents had put as much effort in making their compendium, as they did in calculating permutations and combinations, the judges wouldn't call the compendium this pink thing here."

11.50 am:

(Deepali)

Preliminary Round 1 has ended. Stay tuned For Round 2 starting in 10! 

12:15am:

(Deepali)

Hi folks! We're back as the Second Preliminary Rounds have kicked in! The lack of food and caffeine has put  the Souvenir Committee People at their snarkiest best. The afternnon is bound to be intresting!

Court Room 10- If only running late counted as an exercise, everyone in ALSD would be thin.

(Told you they were snarky!! :P)

1.07 pm

(Hardeep, with inputs from Paromita)
..and we are back!

 The courtrooms have resumed.

And we have a courtroom with a 'sitting counsel', literally so. Why haven't I done that? New thing. Take note.

The speaker 1 of Courtroom 11 of the appellants appears confused as to whether she's mooting or having an internal viva!

1.14 pm`

Courtroom 12 - We have counsels speaking without catching their breath in this room. They could easily steal the show with their beatboxing, "my lordship, m-m-m- my lordship". (Will the Real Slim Shady please stand up?)

1.21 pm

Courtroom 1, the speaker seems to be late for a train and is speaking faster than what Arnab Goswami does in his show. His inspiration is surely evident.

1.29 pm:

(Zaid)
We welcome you back to the hallowed room (Court Room 10). For the past 17 minutes, there has been deathly silence. Probably in the memory of the ones slain in the last rounds. May their souls have the strength to keep arguing. And so it begins, round 2. They say there is no such thing as 'Too much Butter Chicken' and we at Amity law school, Delhi have decided to put that to test. And boy, it is a delicious test. We have new Judges and new teams. And to put it in poultry terms their Lordships are roasting the counsels to a medium rare. We are witnessing them sweat under the blistering heat (It's only February). It's almost too easy for the judges and I feel for our chickens, they're wishing they were back in their egg shells. But I sense a second coming, a glimmer of hope perhaps. Will these chickens hatch? Well, for now there's a barbecue on, anyone interested?

1.33 pm:

(Hardeep)
In Court room 14, the judge is more fiery than the grilled chicken served by KFC.

1.43 pm:

(Gayatri)

After the AIB Knockout, comes the roast in Court Room 12.

1.46 pm:

(Gayatri)

Court Room 10 - What the counsel for appellant must be thinking:

"Mooting is like the Hunger Games. People will tell you you're privileged to be there. But you'll wonder why you volunteered as tribute."

And we have yet another researcher dozing off in Court Room 7!

1.57 pm:

Our sources comment that the speaker's notes and written material are a mess of multi-colored flags that resemble the gay pride flag.

Court Room 3 - The speaker is inarticulate and jerky with an overload of "uh", "ah", "um" in her argument. I almost feel the need of offering her a glass of water and a deep breath. Just as the timer clicked, her speed of delivering the speech shot up to 3 times.

2.09 pm:

Reporter in Court Room 2 - Judge and I will have a really great time bonding, if we ever come to talk! Khan chacha and tunde kabab's obsession is taking over the courtroom! They seem to not stop talking about it, and I can not stop day dreaming about them!

(If you haven't figured it out yet, the reporting team is getting hungrier by the minute.)

2.12 pm:

(Paromita)

We face a temporary power cut, and the uncomfortable silences between a judge's questions and the flipping of pages by the speaker which was drowned by the sounds made by the fans is pronounced like a pink elephant in the room.

2.17 pm:

Court Room 4 - The pressure of the moot is getting A little pat on the sweet innocent red-faced respondent speaker. Plus a towel to soak up the all the sweat! Tried too hard but failed badly!

Court Room 5 - According to the counsel for appellant, Indians are less intelligent than Americans! (The reporters on this end are scandalized.)

Court Room 3 - One of the judges was exasperated by a statement made by the speaker. His repeated attempts to pacify him failed. Phew, I could bake a cake in the heat of this environment.

With this, the Prelim Rounds 2 come to an end. Your lovely reporters will see you after lunch.

Signing off for now,

Gayatri, Paromita and Hardeep.

3.57 pm:

(Gayatri)

And we're back with the results! In no particular order, the teams proceeding to the Quarter Finals are -

1. Indian Law School, Pune

2. Symbiosis Law School, Noida

3. National Law University, Odisha

4. National Law Institute University, Bhopal

5. West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata

6. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow

7. National Law School of India University, Bangalore

8. Dr. Ambedkar Law University's SOEL, Chennai

The Quarters to commence in a few..

The Quarters

(Reporters for the same: Gayatri Korgaonkar, Paromita Das, Harshil Tiwari, B. Venkat, Hardeep Singh)

4.25 pm:

(Paromita)

And we're back!

Court Room 1 - The reporter believes that teams are so sure they won't make it to the semis that they've come with their luggage bags to the court room. Oh wait, that's their research material! My bad. :P

Court Room 4 - Speaker 1's South Indian accent paints a pretty picture and proves to be charming the way George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin's offspring might be.

(Hardeep)

Judge in Courtroom 1 -  When the counsel for the appellant argued on moral grounds instead of making legal arguments, the judge responded, "This is a court, not a gram panchayat."

Court room 2 - The Quarters have begun on a good note in Court Room 2. The first counsel for the appellant is not does seem perturbed by the questions put in front of her by the judges. If I were to ever hire a lawyer for myself, it would be her without doubt. (See? We can be nice too.)

(Harshil)

Court Room 1 - This court is so boring that we are second only to the Parliament when it comes to staging walkouts. (And we're back to snarky.)

(Gayatri)

Court room 2 - When the 2nd counsel was waiting for his turn, we saw a Neville Longbottom in his first year at Hogwarts, but when he came upto the podium, we were pleasantly surprised to see that he is more like Neville Longbottom in the Battle of Hogwarts.

(Venkat)

Court room 3 - The expression on the faces of both the teams hearing the judge's counter questions looks like they're tring to divide 1787 by 23.

Court room 4 - You have the boys (appelants) from south india, the girls from north india (respondents)...they cant understand each other's accents...so it is a happy situation.

(Gayatri)

Court room 1 -
Judge: tarla dalal made this dish called American chopsuey which is neither Indian nor Chinese. Do you think she can get it patented? (Perhaps...but that would require some serious competition with Jesus)

Court room 3 - The counsel for the respondent is time and again sweeping the questions raised by the judges under the rug, "clearly" they're confused if there's a moot going on, or a sequel to tom and jerry.

Disclaimer: The bloggers aren't responsible for any of the bad jokes made here(it is the reporters).

(Paromita)

Court room 3 - Everything is as clear as a Crizal lens for the teams as they are saying nothing but "Clearly" for every question being raised.

Court room 2 - This counsel for the respondent is submitting her arguments at such speed, that she just put Busta Rhymes to shame :-P

Court room 4 - Everything apart from the case(from Amitabh Bachchan's ad on Gujarat tourism to what Lady Gaga wore for the Grammy's this year).

(Gayatri)



a collage of the learned judges who graced the occasion.


5: 57 PM

(Venkat)

Court Room 2 - Virtue of a mooter: Never try and fool the bench, convince them however wrong you may be. Though, I love the way she is very confidently, answering the questions put to her, 1 can particularly be reminded of the yesteryear legend, Rakhi ("Mere karan arjun ayenge"). That tone, yes, that very tone all through the arguments of 2nd respondent.

Court Room 1 -
Respondent: Sir, with all due respect...
Judge: Never say with all due respect. That means you are going to disrespect us.

----

The results have finally been announced! The teams who will proceed to the Semis are, in no particular order-

1. NLIU, Bhopal

2. NLSIU, Bangalore

3. ILS, Pune

4. NLU,Odisha

The semifinals begin tomorrow at 10 am. See y'all then!

The Semifinals

Day 3, 22 February'2015:

Welcome to the final day of the 14th ANNMCC. The bloggers for the day are Hardeep Singh, Gayatri Korgaonkar, Paromita Das, Avni Sharma, Zaid Drabu and a host of court room reporters. We also have our Deepali Singhal, Kartik Khanna updating our Facebook followers at (http://on.fb.me/1FcOWlV)

We hope we've managed to keep you engrossed. May the best team win!

10:30 am:

(Deepali)

Hi folks! As you can see we are running slightly late, maybe because India is playing against South Africa and the reporters are having a conflict of intrest. Nevertheless, we've had a somber beginning. Hope this proves to be a fruitful day too!

 10:53 am

So, the semifinals have begun. We have NLSIU against ILS Pune in Court Room 1, which is graced by Deepa Sharma and V P Vaish. Sangita D Sehgal and Mr Avirup Bose will be judging in Court Room 2, where we have NLIU Bhopal going against NLU Odisha.

11.03 am:

(Zaid)

Court Room 1 - The counsel for the appellant are the best of the lot, battle hardened warriors, but even they make mistakes. The first counsel seems to be an AAP man all the way, referring to his client Arnab Murgwala as Arvind Kejruwala. The broom really is reaching places, God help us.

The counsel for the appellant seeks to move beyond the provisions of the Competiton Act to gain relief proving that ignorance of law is no excuse from trying to get it enforced anyway.

 (Hardeep)

The appellants are arguing and are pretty sauve. The second speaker has a pretentious baritone. No wonder it works.

(Avni)

Courtroom 2 : beginning at sharp 10:30, the student counsels face witty questions from the learned judges. Seems like serious courtroom drama here. The respondent's counsel,with a high bun, spotted biting her nails. Fear seems to have gripped her well.

11:20AM

(Paromita)

Courtroom 2 :The counsel for the appellant seeks to move beyond the provisions of the Competiton Act to gain relief proving that ignorance of law is no excuse from trying to get it enforced anyway!

Courtroom 1: It seems the Speaker 1 of the Respondents' is better at confusing than at convincing. 

(Hardeep)

Courtroom 1 :Haha I love her analogy. She says that it could be that while lux was placing it soaps on a shelf why couldn't dove place its banner?  Even the judge loved it. Said here you have dove and dove.

11:30 AM

Courtroom 1: ...and so the appellants finish establishing their case!

(paromita)

Courtroom 2: while appellants are through with their share of arguments and as respondents address the bench - the appellants share relieved glances and smiles. Seems like they are satisfied with their bit.

Our Reporters tell us: Counsel for respondents has forgotten her spectacles on her way to the dias. She really does want to avoid a clear "outlook" to matters out here.( and the snark is back!)

Courtroom 1: The speaker one of the respondents'has cleverly steered away from the competition issue and has come to passing off either this is the best tactic or she has made a strategic blunder. Only time will tell.

She says while you can change the name of the co. How does he change his name? Name signifies family heritage. How will her daughter get married? Its all in name apparently. Shakespeare take note. His name is murgawala sir. Very proud and delicious name me thinks!!

 And speaker two takes stage

11:42 AM

Courtroom 2 : In court room 2, the counsel of the defendant stare at each other in dismay as the speaker 1 of their side is being grilled by the judges.

Speaker 2 on the respondents' side yawns staring at the face of the judges as his chance to speak approaches, both the judges take the posture of 'not impressed' as speaker 1 on the respondents side continues to argue.

(Avni)

Court Room 2: Big ups for the courtmasters who are the most undervalued players and are doing an entire cross-fit routine by tirelessly passing the documents from the podium to the bench For alternate life careers, they could handle the job of several air traffic controllers with ease!!

(Kudos to the Courtroom Management Committee!!)

(Hardeep)

Courtroom 1:

2nd Speaker for the Respondent says while you can change the name of the co. How does he change his name? Name signifies family heritage. How will her daughter get married? Its all in name apparently. Shakespeare, take note.

(Gayatri)

Court Room 2:

2nd speaker for the Respondent has practised well. Worked well on court craft and points of law - things going pretty smooth out here. Little bombarding of questions doesn't sway him. But the researcher from their team looks like she needs to catch some ZZZ's.

(Avni)

The counsel for defendant cited a Harvard Law Review report as an authority Probably the only time an Ivy League university has been ridiculed by a High Court judge.

12.01 pm:

(Zaid)

As the 2nd speaker of the respondent team takes stage and takes the issue to an international level (Zoozle being a German Company) we are firing up our grills. It's German Frankfurters vs Butter Chicken now. A drool-worthy showdown, almost too much to handle. I spy one of the researchers wandering on livescore.com. Wait, did Shikhar Dhawan just score a century? He sure loves Australia, if you know what we mean.
The speakers today are making a lot of assumptions, we wonder what the judges feel about that, one would assume that they're about to skewer the counsels. One would also assume that that will not be a pretty sight. We're also assuming it will be a lot of fun witnessing that. While you can be sure we'll report every juicy bit of it.

 ... And with that we come to the end of the semi-finals. Yours truly will soon be back with the results.

12.45 pm: 

The teams that qualified for the Grand finals are (in no particular order): 

1. NLSIU, Banglore
2. NLIU, Bhopal

Let the games begin. After lunch. 

The Finals

Your reporters for this match-up are Gayatri Korgaonkar, Paromita Das, Siddhant Bajaj and Avni Sharma, with Hardeep Singh occasionally scoffing.

2.02 pm:

(Gayatri)

And the here we are. The last match-up of the day, the finals begin as per schedule. NLSIU's first speaker begins to run the judges J. Manmohan Singh and J. Sanjeev Sachdeva through the issues to be discussed with ease.

2.07 pm:

 The first speaker from NLSIU argues that the advertising expenditure amounting to Rs. 1 Crore show that the trademark had been well established. 

(Siddhant)

The speaker also argued that that the respondents "adding insult to injury", tried to capatalize on the well established goodwill of their client with mala fide intent.

2.12 pm:

(Paromita)

The first speaker for the appellant refuses to use the microphone, making it harder for yours truly to listen to his arguments. Let's hope this is not his way to pay us back for the previous snarkiness. :P

(Gayatri)

The counsel uses Dr. Reddy's Laboratory Ltd. v. Reddy Pharmaceuticals Ltd. to prove his contention. He explains the facts of the case succinctly and convinces the judges of his argument with ease.

(Paromita)

The counsel contends that the "use" of a trademark and its use in the course of trade are synonymous and exactly the same. "The trademarks may not be absolutely similar, but they would be identical to the Delhi populace." He isn't further questioned by the judges.

(Gayatri)

The counsel's main contention is questioned by the J. Singh. He responds coolly that although there is no graphic similarity between MBBC and ABC, the words in question, when used as keywords will be lead searchers to ABC and therefore there is definite likelihood that the potential consumers would be confused.

The counsel contends that Zoozle must come under the auspices of this Court, citing section 2 (w) of the IT Act-- defining an intermediary. The judges seem impressed, don't ask the counsel to elaborate.

2.30 pm:

(Siddhant)

The judges can be seen listening as well as noting down the points made by the counsel, the counsel with impeccable court craft responded to the stern and attentive gaze of the bench by proceeding with his arguments wherein he accused zoozle the search engine of contributory infringement of trade mark, using a landmark judgement of the United States Supreme court to substantiate his argument, stating thereafter that zoozle is also liable for contributory infringement as they were aware that trade mark infringement was happening as the appelant had previously served a notice to zoozle asking them to take requisite action to correct the same.

2.37 pm:

(Paromita)

The first speaker is done with his submissions and his co-counsel has taken to the podium. This speaker is thankfully louder than his friend, this reporter thanks the heavens for mercy.

2.39 pm:

(Gayatri)

The second counsel has taken up the issue pertaining to Competition law. This reporter appreciates the clarity in his voice and well as his legal concepts.

(Avni)