The week saw the official unveiling of the new SpicyIP. SpicyIP 2.0 is now a website purely dedicated to covering the latest developments in the Indian intellectual property arena and all things relevant. Apart from the revamped look, we have a host of new features such as IP Polls, IP Petitions, IP Jobs and IP Events. We also have a Resource page, which is currently in the works, a special feedback and anonymous tip-off page available here. We would like to thank our ever-so-supportive and enthusiastic readers for helping us come thus far!
In more SpicyIP related news, all IP enthusiasts( students and professionals alike) now stand a chance to join the SpicyIP Blogging team. The 2nd Annual SpicyIP Fellowship is now open. Participants are required to submit three guest posts over a six week period starting December 2014. The 2014-15 fellowship is open to anyone interested and carries a stipend of Rs. 15,000. For more details, click here.
Moving on, Prashant brought to our attention this trademarks appeal in the IPAB which was accompanied with some unsavoury remarks about the Registrar’s decision. The matter pertained to an opposition filed by Sony Corporation against trademark application No. 1255896 filed by Kolkata based textile firm, AB Textiles. The label contained the words ABT and Sony on a blue background. Deputy Registrar M.C. Gupta had refused the opposition, and IPAB Technical Member S. Ravi allowed the same. The order carried strong criticism of the Registrar’s decision: “We need to make a few pointed observations how the Deputy Registrar cleverly and with phony reasoning circumvented the law.”
In a groundbreaking development, the Indian Patent Office rejected India’s second Compulsory Licensing application at the threshold itself. The application was filed by BDR Pharma against Dasatinib, an anticancer drug patented by BMS. Chaitanya Prasad, the Controller General of the IPO held that BDR had failed to make out a “prima facie” case for the grant of a CL. Shamnad Basheer noted that the processing period was rather protracted for this application, as compared to the grant of the first CL application, which came in a mere 6 months! To read the order, click here.
L. Gopika brought to our attention an interesting case involving diplomatic immunity and copyright infringement wherein one of the defendants was a daughter of the Ambassador of Ecuador in India. The defendant sought diplomatic immunity against the plaintiff’s suit of copyright violation. The Court held that the defendant did not enjoy diplomatic immunity for two reasons: Firstly, the defendant’s conduct(leading to copyright infringement) amounted to professional activity, and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961 lays down ‘professional activity’ as an exception to the general rule of family members of diplomats enjoying diplomatic immunity. Secondly, no sanction from the Central Govt. under S. 86 of the CPC is required, because the sanction to institute a suit against Ambassadors only arises in cases of members of the staff or retinue of the Ambassador. Therefore, an injunction was granted against the defendant by the Delhi HC.
Aparajita blogged about the alcohol brand Mast-Jägermeister SE filing a Writ Petition before the High Court of Madras against the Tamil Nadu Police. The matter related to the usage of the company’s registered trademark- Jägermeister in a ‘don’t drink and drive’ campaign poster by the Tamil Nadu Police, where bottles of Jägermeister (with their labels) were placed next to a picture depicting a fatal accident. The court disposed of Mast-Jägermeister SE’s Writ Petition directing the Tamil Nadu Police to comply with the undertaking forthwith. She further discussed such use in the light of ‘fair use’ of a trademark.
Swaraj brought us a Guest Post by Krithika D.N. who gave some guidelines or factors that should consider while going through the tedious process of application and selection of universities – especially for those who are looking specifically at IP focused LLMs. She discussed how location, faculty, alumni network and other considerations should be factored in to short-list the colleges you should ideally apply to.
Call for Papers: The Law and Technology Society of NLSIU brings to you another edition of Consilience. Consilience-2013-14 is a conference dedicated to exploring the various nooks and crannies of cloud computing and its legal repercussions. Every session of the conference of this solitary national-level conference devoted towards law and technology keeps one spot reserved for a student speaker and the call for abstracts for the selection of the same has now been issued. The deadline for the submission of abstracts is November 15, 2013. For more details, click here.
Here’s wishing our readers a happy and a safe Diwali!
