November 2015

SpicyIP Weekly Review (15-22 November, 2015)

/ By / Others

Highlight of the Week This week’s highlight has to be Rupali’s excellent post on the TPP, in which she mounts a multi-front attack on the agreement’s IP provisions. After pointing out the lack of transparency in its negotiation process, she highlights the problems surrounding patent term extensions, data exclusivity and patent linkage. I highly recommend reading the longer, original piece over at The Wire – it’s worth your time, trust me. Shruthi then put up a tidbit on Naik Naik […]

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Should royalty be paid for government taxes, duties, marketing etc.

/ By / Competition Law, Patent

This post deals with two issues in separate parts. Part I deals with the practical problem presented by some, and in my view, incorrect orders of the Delhi High Court. Part II deals with a possible solution to the problem. Last year we had written about order of Delhi High Court directing ad-interim payments to be made by Micromax Informatics to Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson. This decision made the basis on which further orders related to different parties were given. For

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SpicyIP Tidbit: Naik Naik & Co launches a media and entertainment law certificate course in collaboration with ILS Law College, Pune

/ By / Others, Sponsored

Naik Naik and Company, Mumbai will be conducting a three day certificate course on media and entertainment laws from 4th to 6th December, 2015, in collaboration with ILS Law College, Pune. The course is being conducted by Mr. Ameet Naik, Founder and Managing Partner of Naik Naik and Company and an alumnus of ILS, along with Ms. Madhu Gadodia and Mr. Ravi Suryawanshi, Partner-Media and Entertainment division of Naik Naik and Company. The certificate course is a specialised one in Media &

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Why the TPP could kill access to medicines

/ By / Data Exclusivity, Drug Regulation, Others, Patent

In an article published on 16th November, 2015 in the Wire, I have analysed the Patent section of the Intellectual Property chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty, a regional free trade agreement involving the US and 11 other countries and 40% of the world GDP that was released earlier this month. Negotiated in secret, the Treaty has been controversial for adopting TRIP plus standards in IP, threatening internet freedom, endangering the rights of labour, health and the environment, and, largely furthering

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Weekly Review (8th – 15th November)

/ By / Others

Our Highlight of the Week is Balaji’s post dealing with the fascinating and complex nexus between Trade Secret protection and the Right to Information, following up from his previous post on the case of Ferani Hotels v. State Information Commission and Ors. He discusses the dearth of High Court (and lack of Supreme Court) cases dealing with this issue, and then moves on to discussing certain specific, and curious, instances of these interactions. He discusses the trade secret protection available

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Trade Secrets and the Right to Information: Thoughts on Ferani Hotels v. State Information Commissioner [Part II]

/ By / Overlaps in IP, Trade Secret

In my previous post, I discussed the Bombay HC’s ruling in Ferani Hotels v. State Information Commissioner and Ors., in which the Petitioner attempted (unsuccessfully) to prevent the Bombay Municipal Corporation from disclosing its real estate development plans under an RTI application. As I mentioned there, the Supreme Court has never had to issue a decision on S. 8(1)(d) of the RTI Act, which provides for the protection of trade secrets and other information of commercial confidence from disclosure. The

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The ‘Indian Express’ trademark infringement conundrum

/ By / Trademark

This post summarizes a recent case decided by Justice Gautam Patel of the Bombay HC, where the question of whether the use of a title registered only with the Registrar of Newspapers for India (RNI) under the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867 (the ‘Press Act’) can amount to infringement of an identical title registered under the Trade Marks Act, 1999, was tackled. The Court, ruling in favour of the plantiffs, held that the mark had been infringed, and restrained the defendant from using the

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Form 27 and Draft Patent (Amendment) Rules, 2015

/ By / Innovation, Patent

Introduction I had earlier covered Shamnad Basheer v. Union of India where the petitioner highlighted the failure to enforce statutory provisions relating to the disclosure as to how patentees have worked their inventions. This is a unique provision in the Indian Patents Act, 1970 (section 146(2)), and year after year, patentees are mandated to submit information (through Form 27) on the extent to which they’ve worked their patent i.e converted it to an innovative product and supplied the product to

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SpicyIP Weekly Review ( 1st-7th November)

/ By / Others

SpicyIP Highlight of the Week ! Our SpicyIP Highlight of the Week was Balaji’s summary post  on the Ferani Hotels v. State Information Commissioner judgement that brought up for consideration a question that involved an interesting overlap of intellectual property and the RTI. It dealt with a writ petition filed by Ferani Hotels against an order issued by the State Information Commissioner in an appeal filed by Mr. Nusli Wadia, directing the Bombay Municipal Corporation to disclose information concerning the petitioner’s

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Authors’ Guild v. Google – A Fair Use victory, and a chance for introspection

/ By / Copyright

After Lenz v. Universal, the US Courts have hit the ball right out of the park once again with yet another Fair Use ruling! This time, the ruling comes from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, New York, in the Authors Guild v. Google. This is a fascinating case with quite some history, which I explore in this post. [Long Post Ahead] This case started in 2005, and concerns Google’s ambitious Google Books program. The program (which I think all

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