The SpicyIP Highlights of the last two weeks:
- Prashant Reddy’s Guest Post on the curious case of IPRS, Indian Railways and Rabindrasangeet, where he discusses IPRS’ demand of hefty royalty amounts from the Indian Railways for playing Rabindrasangeet and other classic Bollywood melodies on trains.
- On New Years’ Eve, Thomas posted a hard hitting IP development on the copyright-design interface: the interpretation of S.15(2) of the Copyright Act in Mukul Goyal v. Union of India. The vires of S.15(2) was challenged under Art. 14 , 19(1)(a) and 21 of the Constitution.
- Swaraj’s post announcing that the first draft of the National IPR Policy is out.
On 23rd December, I had carried a post announcing that the IP Office has launched its own biannual IP publication titled ‘IP Expressions’. The publication can be accessed here.
Aparajita then discussed a case where the patentee played the blame game with its own attorney regarding non-payment of annuity. The assistant controller saw through the game and decided not to restore the patent.
Thomas then brought us the update that the injunction against OnePlus with respect to CyanogenMod OS has been lifted by the Delhi HC, with the court noting the perils of of granting an ad-interim injunctions and how it can be granted only in the gravest of circumstances.
Matthew then brought us a thoughtful post on the government’s ‘Make in India’ campaign, where he warns against attempting to take shortcuts in the path to development of the manufacturing sector, and ignoring quality of manufacturing in the process.
I then wrote a post on a recent judgment where the Bombay High Court used the corporate law principles of derivative action in a patent suit.
SpicyIP Fellowship Series
(Click here for more details about the Fellowship-deadline for application is January 16th)
We carried three posts by Fellowship applicants:
- Aabhas Kshetarpal, a 4th year student at NLU Jodhpur analysed the current status of the ongoing Google Books Library project case.
- Aabhas also brought us a post on a case involving the interpretation of S.39 of the Patents Act. He points out that the decision means that applicants filing a PCT application by way of a section 39 clearance may inadvertently delay their international filing date. He then goes on to suggest that the Court’s interpretation of the section may be incongruent with the Act.
- Kartik Chawla, a 3rd year student at NALSAR wrote on Innovation in the time of SEPs and FRAND Licensing. He predicts that a disruption in the smartphone sector in the form of moving towards modular phones may be the solution to some of the problems that ail this sector at present.
Events and Other Announcements
- University of Washington School of Law and Indian Society of International Law are jointly conducting an event titled ‘IP: Emerging Issues and Dialogue’ on 16th January in Krishna Menon Bhawan, Connaught Place, New Delhi. Click here for more details.
- ipMetrix is conducting a free webinar on January 6th on Software Patent Claims in the USA. Click here for more details.
- On February 14th and 15th, NLU Delhi is conducting the Annual IP Teaching Workshop. More details here.
- Nirma University’s Journal of Intellectual Property Law is calling for submissions. More details here.
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