June 2016

SpicyIP Weekly Review (19-25 June)

/ By / Others

  Our Highlight of the Week was quite clearly Shan’s important announcement of the Government now allowing upto 74% Foreign Direct Investment in existing pharmaceutical companies through the automatic route as brownfield investment. Although 100% FDI was already permitted on obtaining approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, she notes that this should lead to an increase in deals in the pharma sector. In what she calls an uphill task, there will have to be a balance maintained between a foreign […]

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Is obscurity a greater risk than piracy?

/ By / Copyright

    What better time to take up this debate than now when Anurag Kashyap, the director of Udta Punjab, has himself said that he does not care two hoots about the movie being downloaded online once the movie releases in the cinemas. Though he has urged everyone to desist from torrenting the movie till it is released (for wholly unrelated reasons), he made it clear that he is not in any way against the downloading of movies online and

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Digital Sampling : Bieber’s ‘Sorry’ Copyright Controversy (Part II)

/ By / Copyright

(Part I can be accessed here) Both Bieber and Skrillex have vehemently refuted allegations that the riff comprises an act of digital sampling – Skrillex recently even tweeted a video in an attempt to break down the creation of the vocal riff in ‘Sorry’. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to explore the possible defences available against an action of infringement specifically by digital sampling, in attempt to speculatively – on account of lack of sufficient judicial precedent – narrow down the

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Digital Sampling: Bieber’s ‘Sorry’ Copyright Controversy (Part I)

/ By / Copyright

Following close on the heels of the Los Angeles District Court’s historic decision last year in the ‘Blurred Lines’ copyright infringement scandal, comes another rather scandalously tasty instance of an allegedly infringing work, Justin Bieber’s Billboard topping, Selena Gomez-serenading, hit single, ‘Sorry’. It appears that an indie singer, Casey Dienels, working under the stage name ‘White Hinterland’, has reportedly sued both Bieber and his producer Skrillex for allegedly sampling the famous “oo-ooh” introductory vocal riff from her haunting version in

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Backing Up the Start-Up: Benefits of a Sound IPR Strategy

/ By / Innovation, Others

We bring to you a guest post by Sonia Chauhan, an associate at Talwar Advocates. In this post she discusses the benefits of having an IP strategy in place for start ups at an early stage and the pitfalls of leaving it for too late. Not only can an effective IP strategy aid in securing funding, no IP protection at all can result in copy cat models invading the market and a significant loss in market share. Read on for

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Government relaxes FDI norms in Pharma

/ By / Drug Regulation, Others, Patent

The government has recently allowed up to 74% Foreign Direct Investment (“FDI”) in existing pharmaceutical companies (brownfield investment) through the automatic route.  100% FDI is already permitted under the existing policy for brownfield investments after obtaining approval of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (“FIPB”). The press release is available here.  From a plain reading these changes should lead to an increase in deals in the pharma sector.  The only difference between the recent change and the existing policy is a

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Ultratech Cement versus Dalmia Cement: Bombay High Court on Protection of Components of Registered Marks

/ By / Trademark

In a fairly straightforward case of trademark infringement and passing off, Justice S.C. Gupte of the Bombay High Court dismissed the plaintiff’s application for interim relief on the ground that there was no concrete likelihood of deception or confusion. While the case is otherwise quite unexceptional, the judgment makes for interesting reading because of the court’s lucid enunciation of the difference between a descriptive mark and a prominent/essential mark and the discussion on the rights of owners of registered trademarks

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Flying cars in India by 2018?

/ By / Patent

[This post was co-authored with Madhulika Vishwanathan]   Flying cars. We’ve grown up with the fantasy – the Jetsons, Harry Potter, and then a flurry of sci-fi movies. We’ve all watched enthralled as Elroy and Judy Jetson travelled to school in their flying car capsule. Commuting on a daily basis via a flying car might become a reality in the near future, as PAL-V Europe NV a Dutch based company, prepares to launch a flying car in India. As seen

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Of judicial [un]appointments, double standards and the United States’ crumbling facade of multilateralism

/ By / Others

In what is being called a legitimacy crisis, the WTO faces the vacation of two Appellate Body (AB) seats as the United States has, in an unprecedented move – opposed the re-appointment of Mr. Seung Wha Chang, from South Korea. And in what seems to be a knee jerk reaction, South Korea has now announced their opposition to the re-appointment of any AB members, bringing their number down from seven to five – as it is only Ms Yuejiao Zhang

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Musings on Phishy Copyright Societies

/ By / Copyright

A recent incident with a Spicy IP friend in UK got us musing on one of our pet peeves on this blog, copyright collecting societies. Imagine you are an academic who has published a few books available across libraries in the UK and US. One day out of the blue you receive an email from a person claiming to be part of an organisation called Authors Registry informing you of x amount of foreign royalties owed to you which have

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