August 2016

Assessing the consequences of TRIPS+ FTAs for India: TPP, TISA and RCEP (Part II)

/ By / Others

In the previous post, I’d summarised my findings from a study of the TPP, the TISA and the RCEP and their impact on Indian/TRIPS IP and e-commerce norms. Here, I flag specific issues that merit urgent consideration. E-commerce While an important element of the TPP’s Digital Two Dozen (D2D) core principles is the removal of customs duties on all digital products (Article 14.3), this does not create any new international obligation for India. This is because India is a party […]

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Assessing the consequences of TRIPS+ FTAs for India: TPP, TISA and RCEP (Part I)

/ By / Others

Several recent bilateral and regional Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) appear to be exporting standards of IP protection that extend well beyond those prescribed by the Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). These FTAs include the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). In this two-part post, I have scrutinised the TPP, TISA and RCEP that deal with IP and the digital economy vis-a-vis

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Tatas get temporary reprieve from Bom High Court and Justice Patel endorses academic suggestion

/ By / Copyright

As our readers may recall, Justice Patel of the Bombay High Court had, earlier this month, rejected an application by Tata Communications Limited (TCL), an internet service provider, for modification of its John Doe order in the Dishoom case and ordered it to comply with the order. The application had sought permission to display a generic error message on the blocked URLs instead of a customized one for each particular order as directed by the court. The reason cited by

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The Moo Point: Cows and Bulls lock horns with IPRs

/ By / Biological Diversity, Patent

The good old cow was mooing along and minding her business when suddenly the Narendra Modi government was elected and she was catapulted from minor celebrity status to headline grabbing stardom. Everyone wants to protect her; self-appointed cow vigilantes have cropped all over the country who have no qualms in committing murder in her name.  Prime minister Narendra Modi last week issued a statement condemning self styled cow protectors as “anti-social”. Recently a PIL was also filed in the Supreme

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Ericsson’s offer of SEP terms to TCL held to adhere to FRAND standards by U.S Court

/ By / Patent

On the 1st of August, 2016, California District Court Judge James V. Selna ruled that some of the license terms that Ericsson offered TCL Communication Technology Holdings Limited (‘TCL’) were fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory, narrowing TCL’s claims in their lawsuit against Ericsson. This lawsuit was filed in 2014, and alleges Ericsson’s refusal to license their Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) of global 2G, 3G and 4G standards at fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. Importantly, only some of Ericsson’s contract terms

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Delhi High Court reinforces jurisdictional importance of cause of action; lambasts Single Judge for dissenting with division bench in Ultrahome

/ By / Copyright, Trademark

In Ultrahome Constructions v. Purushottam, a division bench of the Delhi High Court interpreted IPRS v. Sanjay Dalia to hold that the plaintiff will be constrained to sue at the place of its subordinate office if the cause of action arises there and not at the place of its principal office. The Delhi HC has essentially upheld the importance of the existence of the cause of action while determining jurisdiction in copyright and trademark litigation. Now, the Delhi HC has

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (August 7-13)

/ By / Others

I believe this week’s thematic highlights were Ritvik’s pieces. Not only were they quite analytically comprehensive, but also quite palatable relative to the complexity of the issues that he chose to deal with. His first piece was on the method of determination of the situs of Intellectual Property. In the Delhi HC decision that he analysed, the Divisional bench held that a foreign entity’s IP transaction was not taxable in India. Ritvik disagrees with this stance. He contends that the IP

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Delhi High Court Adopts an Expansive Interpretation of Cause of Action; Holds that it has Jurisdiction to Decide Legality of Cancellation of Compulsory Licenses

/ By / Copyright

While legal contestations between plaintiffs and defendants as regards the infraction of the former’s intellectual property rights make for interesting analysis, a large portion of an IP litigator’s career is spent on getting the procedural issues right. Ascertaining with surgical precision the cause of action upon which the suit is founded, establishing that a court does possess the territorial jurisdiction to adjudicate upon a dispute and complying with the myriad procedural prerequisites for a suit to stand in court are

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Pokemon GO and Freedom of Panorama in India

/ By / Copyright

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players […]” One does not know if this was what the creators of Pokemon Go had in mind when they created the gaming app. Nevertheless, just a month into its launch, the app has taken the world by storm and its players are everywhere looking for their elusive catch. For the un- initiated, Pokemon Go is an augmented reality game developed by Niantic, which uses the GPS of

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Delhi High Court: Plaintiff must sue at principal office when cause of action absent from subordinate office

/ By / Copyright, Trademark

In my previous post (here and here), I analyzed the jurisdictional position of IP litigation after the SC’s decision in IPRS v. Sanjay Dalia. I noted there that a division bench (DB) of the Delhi High Court has interpreted Dalia in Ultrahome Constructions v. Purushottam Kumar Chaubey; wherein the Delhi HC ruled that the plaintiff cannot sue at the place of its registered office when it also has a subordinate office where the cause of action has also arisen. The Delhi HC

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