SpicyIP Weekly Review- (February Week 2)

Aparajitha also wrote about how the trademark of the Swedish firm, IKEA is being infringed upon by Indian firms that are trying to take advantage of the goodwill and reputation of international firms. In the FDI context, where IKEA’s entry into India has been approved, IKEA may file a trademark infringement case against such Indian firms Aparajitha also cited examples of GroupOn and Walmart to underscore the fact that IKEA is not a one-off case in the Indian context.

We then had Anubha Sinha, writing on the latest Delhi HC order that barred Bisleri from using the brand Maaza in India. The Delhi High Court was moved by Coca Cola asking for an injunction preventing Bisleri from using the brand Maaza in India as the right to use the trademark in India had been assigned to Coca Cola. The High Court ruled in favour of Coca Cola. However, the Court noted that Bisleri may continue to manufacture Maaza in India, on the condition that the stock is exported. 

Prashant wrote an interesting post about the cartel-like behaviour of radio stations and music labels in the compulsory licensing battles between them. He argues that negotiations for licenses between individual music labels and radio stations must be allowed in order to give radio stations an opportunity to approach just the music labels of their choice. This is beneficial for the music labels, radio stations and the end listener who is likely to get a better diversity of songs than through the present mechanism where all radio stations negotiate with PPL, which represents 160 music labels. 

I wrote my first post for SpicyIP as a Fellow on the new Unitary Patent System in Europe. The unitary patent is intended to provide legal protection for the applicants in 25 member countries of the European Union through a single administrative step, with the exception of Italy and Spain. There will also be a Unified Patent Court whose decisions on validity and infringement would be binding on the 25 EU countries. The unitary patent system will no longer require applicants to translate all their paperwork into the language of the respective EU member country. However, this lack of requirement of translation has been criticized on the ground that the new system privileges companies that work in English, French and German while disadvantaging other EU countries. This also throws up important questions on the issue of determining prior art. Other problems of the patent system such as its necessity itself, maintenance fee and forum shopping were discussed.

Rajiv Choudhry wrote a post about the recent IPAB order that directed the patent office to accept a national  phase patent application that was originally filed with less fees. The IPAB ruling is based on the fact that the rejection happened at the last date by which time it was impossible for the applicant to correct their mistake. Rajiv argues that while this is an excellent decision, the IPAB in this case have skirted around the issue of the extra fees that the patent office receives from applicants who enter the national phase with less claims than at the international application phase.

Anubha Sinha reported on the recent RetractionWatch fiasco. RetractionWatch is a blog that is dedicated to reporting retractions in the medical field. They reported about Dr. Anil Potti, who has ten retractions to his credit on their blog. A copyright infringement case has been filed against Retraction watch regarding the reporting of Dr. Potti by Newsbulet.in, whose editor is a Mr. Chatwal from Noida on the ground that RetractionWatch copied the blog posts regarding Dr. Potti from Newsbulet.in. This is unlikely as RetractionWatch published the posts on Dr. Potti in January, 2011 before Newsbulet was created in October, 2012. Anubha also notes that this is not the first time DMCA notices have been manipulated to serve an ulterior purpose.

It has been a very shocking and painful week for SpicyIP as we attempt to absorb the news of the sudden demise of Rahul Cherian, an expert and policy activist in disability law, intellectual property  law and technology law . Mr. Cherian , a 1998 graduate of NLSIU Bangalore is the co-founder of Inclusive Planet Centre for Disability and Policy, a NGO.  He was a fellow of the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore as well as a partner at IndoJuris Law Offices, Chennai.

International Developments

Managing IP survey: The 20th edition of Managing IP’s annual survey of the leading IP firms across the world is due this year. The survey and ranking of patent firms has already been released in the February issue of their magazine with the survey of trademark firms due in March and copyright firms in April.. Thye survey of patent firms includes the mergers, splits and hires in Europe, Asia as well as a state by state analysis of firms across the United Sates.

Copyright for librarians: An essential handbook:  This is a concise and simplified copyright law book for librarians developed by Harvard’s Berkman Centre for Internet and Society. The book covers new developments in the area of copyright law and can be downloaded for free from here.

Draft text on the protection of genetic resources: WIPO delegates of the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) after a week long drafting exercise have produced a draft text on the protection of genetic resources which is to be tabled before WIPO’s annual General Assembly in September 2013 as per the Committee’s mandate. It is aimed at protecting genetic resources from misappropriation. Joint recommendations and proposals have been submitted by many developed and developing countries around the world.

Promoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation is a study co-edited by WHO, WTO and WIPO on the interplay between public health, intellectual property and trade which was launched last week . The 250 page document is aimed at policymakers, international organisations, academics, researchers and non-governmental organisations. The heads of all three organizations were clear on the fact that the study is not meant as a final report and that it should be  “treated as a practical resource and not a doctrinal treatise.”