SpicyIP Highlight of the Week!
The SpicyIP Highlight of the Week was Thomas’ analysis of the Delhi High Court order calling for the blocking of 219 websites which were found to be infringing the exclusive broadcast rights of MSM Satellite in the recently concluded FIFA World Cup 2014. Titled ‘Ashok Kumar Goes on a Rampage’, the post concludes as “There are clear issues with this order and the potential for misuse is extremely grave.”
Early on in the week, Swaraj brought to our notice that WIPO has recently released Economics Literature Database containing key academic literature which would be helpful for researchers, policy-makers and anyone else interested in the economics of IP.
Next we had Thomas carry a tidbit on WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR); he reported that there were disagreements on certain issues between the developed and the developing countries because of which consensus could not be reached on a number of points that include exceptions to copyright for libraries and education.
With the Budget for 2014-2015 being announced on July 10th, we thought it apt to analyse some of the aspects of The Budget which relate to intellectual property rights (Read Mathews’ post here).
In light of the recent ruling of the US Supreme Court in the Aereo case, Anubha analysed the latest defence of Aereo where it asserts that it is “a cable company without cables”, by way of Compulsory License application to the US Copyright Office.
Kartik Chawla, a regular guest blogger at SpicyIP, blogged about some of the crucial changes being brought about to the internet, courtesy ICANN, and the IP concerns that emerge from this.
Incidentally, the 50th ICANN meeting was held from 22nd-26th June this year (Spadika has summarized it briefly here.)
Aparajita posted about a very interesting case of the Delhi High Court pertaining to defamation on social media where the Court rejected the ‘multiple publication rule’ for libel on the internet and instead adopted the ‘single publication rule’.
In another interesting post last week, Aparajita blogged about the reverse trend in the movie industry where it appears that Hollywood is now being inspired by Bollywood!
Gopika analysed a recent judgment of the Bombay High Court on the issue of IPR protection for common expressions. The case pertained to the question of trademark protection for the phrase ‘Lai Bihaari’ which is the title of a new film starring Ritesh Deshmukh and coincidentally the domain name of a Marathi social networking site.
Lastly, Madhulika reported that pharmaceutical giant Merck is seeking a settlement with Glenmark in the Januvia (Sitagliptin) patent dispute.
Intellectual Property News from Around the Globe:
- An interesting solution to fight the evil of piracy was suggested by UK authors in the House of Commons. During a debate in the British Parliament, a pair of award-winning authors has put forth the suggestion that “assemblies on copyright should take place in every school.”
- On a related front, two persons were arrested in Tamil Nadu for illegally downloading and telecasting recently released films ‘Vadacurry’ and ‘Un Samayal Araiyal’.
- Interestingly, certain Chinese pirates are cashing in on the popularity of the Harry Potter franchise by creating unauthorized stories featuring the young wizard. While this might infuriate the true blue fans of Harry Potter, those who can’t get enough of the fantasy fiction surely aren’t complaining.
- Tesla Motors (which was in the news recently for announcing that it would not initiate lawsuit against anyone who wants to use their patented electric car technology in good faith) is facing a copyright infringement suit from Chinese businessman, Baosheng.
- The European Court of Justice has recently ruled that a shop layout may be protected as a trademark- the ECJ ruling was the outcome of Apple Inc. v Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt wherein Apple succeeded in securing trademark protection for its store layout design.
As we conclude the SpicyIP Weekly Review, we would like to inform our readers that India’s DBT/DST Draft Policy is open for comments/suggestions from the public till 25th July (Further details of the same are available here.)
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