After almost 7 years, 600+ posts and the better part of my twenties, I’ve decided to call it a day and step down from Spicy IP. The reason for this being that I’m finding it quite hard to balance work and the blog because of which I’ve decided to concentrate on only one and I chose the job. I will of course try to chip in with the odd guest post when time permits. As some of you may know […]
A few last words & a goodbye Read More »
Almost two years after it was enacted by Parliament, the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 has proved to be quite a non-starter due to both the incompetence and impotence of all major stakeholders. Forget the operationalisation of royalty sharing arrangements, which was in any case a distant dream as demonstrated by Abhay Deol’s recent experience, the biggest failure is the fact that not much has changed with IPRS. As I had reported a few months ago, IPRS had amended its Articles
Almost two years later, India’s new copyright law makes no difference to music industry Read More »
The access-to-medicines folks as well as Big Pharma backers will want to take note of the latest ‘issue’ arising in the pharmaeutical pricing arena. As we had reported earlier last year, Roche had decided to drop its pursuance of patents over breast cancer biologics drug Herceptin (Trastuzumab). However, if anyone thought this meant a cheaply available generic would soon be available, it turns out that they’d be mistaken. US-based Mylan along with partner Bangalore-based Biocon received regulatory approval a few
Herceptin’s biosimilar: off patent and still expensive. What now? Read More »
A recent case raises serious issues around patent attorneys and professional negligence, the biggest elephant in the room that not many have spoken about till date. To what extent should a patent attorney be liable for compromising the case of their clients? And what is the nature of legal liability? Also, to what extent is a client to blame for the fault of an attorney? Assuming professional negligence of the patent attorney were to be established, could the client argue
Professional Negligence and Attorney Liability? Read More »
Another investigation has been ordered by the CCI into Ericsson’s anti competitive licensing of its Standard Essential Patents (‘SEP’). The present investigation has been clubbed with the investigation ordered in Micromax vs. Ericsson FRAND royalty case (which we have blogged about here). For a detailed understanding of FRAND licenses and SEPs read Rajiv’s posts here, here and here. The CCI in its order dated 16th Jan 2014, examined Ericsson’s conduct and concluded that it was prima facie an abuse of
Not so FRANDly! CCI orders another Ericsson investigation on complaint by Intex Read More »
One of our regular readers, a patent agent and law student from US has sent in a request for our patent attorney readers. Please see as below: Dear SpicyIP readers: A team of law students, who are members of the Intellectual Property law Fellowship at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, California, are working on a Research Project directed toward aiding patent attorneys in developing international patent filing strategies for biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. With the help
On January 21st, 2014 reporter Ketaki Gokhale of Bloomberg BusinessWeek published a shocking statement by Bayer Chief Executive Officer Marijn Dekkers as part of their story on drug patents and prices. With respect to the Nexavar drug which we’ve covered extensively on this blog, he was quoted as saying: “We did not develop this medicine for Indians,” “We developed it for western patients who can afford it.” Nexavar of course was the kidney cancer drug for which the IPAB upheld India’s
Update: Nexavar only for western patients Read More »
As we had reported earlier on the blog (click here), the Registry for Geographical Indications (G.I.), has ordered the Agricultural and Processed Foods Export Development Authority (APEDA) to amend its application for the protection of ‘Basmati’ as G.I. to include certain areas from Madhya Pradesh as growing ‘Basmati’ rice. For a variety of rice which has historically been advertised as growing at the foothills of the Himalayas, the inclusion of areas of Madhya Pradesh, located in Central India, at a
‘Basmati’ from Central India – Culinary heresy? Read More »
[Edit: The original post had erroneously stated that the arrest of the teenager was carried out under The Kerala Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act 2007. The author regrets that the title may have been chosen hastily.] In a bid to prevent online piracy which is on the rise in Kerala’s film industry, Mollywood, Kerala police recently arrested a teenager for uploading a copy of the Malayalam film ‘Dhrishyam’ using Facebook (He had uploaded the film on Facebook in three sections/pages and
Screenager versus Kerala’s Bizarre Copyright Law Read More »
Indian music artists have found support in Abhay Deol in their fight against exploitative record labels. Abhay Deol is a Bollywood actor known for his offbeat roles. Last week, the actor put up a facebook post asserting his stand against record labels which force artists to assign their royalty rights in contravention of the Copyright Act. It seems despite the amendment to the Copyright Act which provides that the author of a literary or musical work incorporated in a cinematograph film or
