The readers have already been informed about the ongoing copyright dispute between the Indian company Ideafarms and the German body corporate Continental A.G. and the apparently irregular manner in which the German judiciary has decided against Ideafarms without according the latter a proper hearing (see here). Given that a lot of noise was being made in Germany about the lack of enforcement of IP rights in India following the Enercon and Natco decisions, it was inevitable that Germany would raise those two matters during the bilateral talks scheduled with India between May 9 and May 11. As had been predicted before in the related post, the Indian government too found in the Ideafarms dispute sufficient diplomatic ammunition to face Germany.
As per a recent report from The Economic Times, in course of the meeting that had taken place between the Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma and the German Federal Minister of Economics & Technology Philipp Roessler, Sharma had raised concerns about the Ideafarms dispute and the manner in which it had been handled by the German court. He was assured that the German government would look into the matter and ensure a just resolution to the dispute.
Hopefully, the assurance will not remain mere empty words and Ideafarms will be able to enforce the copyright that it owns over the software that forms the crux of the dispute. It may further be of interest to the readers that since the post on the Ideafarms dispute has been published, the Spicy IP team members have been contacted by German lawyers willing to fight on behalf of Ideafarms in addressing what according to them consisted flagrant violations of the latter’s IP, trade and investment rights.
It is a good news that spicyip has been contacted by German lawyers willing to fight on behalf of Ideafarms in addressing what according to them consisted flagrant violations of the latter’s IP, trade and investment rights. High regards for them.