Shamnad Basheer
Prof. (Dr.) Shamnad Basheer founded SpicyIP in 2005. He's also the Founder of IDIA, a project to train underprivileged students for admissions to the leading law schools.
He served for two years as an expert on the IP global advisory council (GAC) of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
In 2015, he received the Infosys Prize in Humanities in 2015 for his work on legal education and on democratising the discourse around intellectual property law and policy. The jury was headed by Nobel laureate, Prof. Amartya Sen.
Professional History:
After graduating from the NLS, Bangalore Prof. Basheer joined Anand and Anand, one of India’s leading IP firms. He went on to head their telecommunication and technology practice and was rated by the IFLR as a leading technology lawyer.
He left for the University of Oxford to pursue post-graduate studies, completing the BCL, MPhil and DPhil as a Wellcome Trust scholar. His first academic appointment was at the George Washington University Law School, where he served as the Frank H Marks Visiting Associate Professor of IP Law. He then relocated to India in 2008 to take up the MHRD Chaired Professorship in IP Law at WB NUJS, a leading Indian law school. Later, he was the Honorary Research Chair of IP Law at Nirma University and also a visiting professor of law at the National Law School (NLS), Bangalore.
Prof. Basheer has published widely and his articles have won awards, including those instituted by ATRIP, the Stanford Technology Law Review and CREATe. He was consulted widely by the government, industry, international organisations and civil society on a variety of IP issues. He also served on several government committees.
Our sincere respect to the departed soul. May God give courage to the family and the fraternity to cope up with the loss of a noble life.
It is very heavy loss for me. I have known him for at least a decade. He always had some solution for a knotty problem. He always tried to be as perfect as possible in drafting pleadings. He was courageous and never feared authority. I for one do know how he helped turned the tide of one case in our favour by pointing out inconsistency in pleadings. He was a great friend. May his soul rest in peace and his wife and son overcome the terrible loss.