SpicyIP 2.0: We’re live!

Warm greetings to all our readers!

We are delighted to announce the launch of our new website SpicyIP.com. It’s been eight years since Prof. Shamnad Basheer started SpicyIP as a blog dedicated to the reportage and analysis of IP laws and developments in India. We are now finally moving from Google’s blogging platform (spicyipindia.blogspot.com) to our own full fledged website – for a new look, more functionality and hopefully a spicier IP experience for our readers!

Over the years our team members, both old and new, have seen SpicyIP churn out over 3000 analytical posts on complex issues as well as shorter newsy posts to bring forth the most pertinent news on Indian IP and innovation law and policy. SpicyIP has emerged as India’s leading IP resource with recognition world over – from being listed as a top IP resource by Lexis Nexis and the US Library of Congress in 2008, to being selected as one of Managing IP’s top 50 shapers of the future of IP in 2011, to being listed as the 8th most widely read IP/Tech law blog in the world in 2013. It’s also recently come to our notice that SpicyIP is being cited in some of the top law journals as well. (Example). Of course none of this would have been possible if it weren’t for the participation and encouragement of our readers and we’d like to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt gratitude to each one of you.

Features

Our regular readers may remember that in our modest way, we attempted to gauge public opinion on important IP issues with ‘IP Polls’. Readers would also recollect some of our vigilant campaigns for transparency in Indian IP institutions by spearheading online petitions in our section ‘IP Petitions’. Our regular roundup on important ‘IP Events’ and career opportunities in this field in our ‘IP Jobs’ section in the country has received much appreciation from readers. And of course, our team has also been very grateful for the tip-offs we receive pointing us towards new IP developments. Our new site tries to build upon each of these features and the new site we present to you is an attempt to make this experience better and more interactive. The first four of these features are viewable in the box at the top right corner of the site and the feedback and anonymous tip-off page is available here. We’ve also put together a resources page which we will expand in the coming weeks. We hope that this initiative of ours will benefit the IP community! 

Off the site, our endeavour to engage more with our readers also includes sending out more short newsy items directly to our 4000+ subscriber base as well as increasing our activities on our social media fronts. We also encourage users to make use of the The Lens search box on our right column. As per their site, “the Lens serves nearly all of the patent documents in the world as open, annotatable digital public goods that are integrated with scholarly and technical literature along with regulatory and business data.”

Subscriptions

Some users may have noticed that we experimented with different subscription formats over the last few weeks. Readers can expect their existing subscription policy to now continue working as it did on our former blog. This means that users have the option of receiving each post as we put it out, or to receive daily summaries, or to receive combined updates (25 per email). New users can subscribe through the subscription box in the top right panel. Existing users can modify / cancel their subscriptions by going directly to the Google Groups page – and clicking on ‘my settings’. Users can also modify / cancel their subscription by clicking on the relevant link at the bottom of every post that you will receive from us. Aside from subscribing to email posts, users can also create accounts on SpicyIP by clicking on “Register” at the top right panel.

Acknowledgements 

With regards to the new site, we’d like to thank Kashyap and his excellent team at Octathorpe for their terrific work on our site, as well as Rohon Bhuyan for all his help with the design. We also thank our former team member Sumathi Chandrashekaran for her continued participation in SpicyIP by giving us valuable feedback on the website. We thank Donnie Ashok, an IDIA scholar in his 2nd year at GNLU and head of IT at IDIA for his assistance with the website as well. Finally, this website certainly would not have been possible without the countless hours that our own Sai Vinod put into this website – a great big thanks to him!

Initial Hiccups!

Our readers may have noted a few oddities over the last couple of weeks as we’ve been testing out the site. It appears we may have inadvertently sent out emails to readers who had not asked for individual posts to be emailed to them, or even to some readers who had opted out of email notifications. We are extremely sorry for this glitch. There ought to be no more issues but if there are, we ask of you to let us know and please bear with us as we get it sorted out as soon as we can. 

In the mean time, please do take a look around our new site and let us know your thoughts and comments by either leaving a comment below or by writing to us directly. We have more surprises coming for our readers in the near future and look forward to taking our discussions and dialogues with you to greater heights!