A solid step forward in accessing Indian IP Jurisprudence! DPIIT has come up with IP LEX, a digital repository of IP decision summaries created by the Office of the CGPDTM.
It is natural for IP practitioners and researchers to find it difficult to keep track of legal developments. These developments emerge from judicial judgments, quasi-judicial decisions, and administrative orders – all scattered across various High Courts, quasi-judicial offices, commercial court websites, and e-Courts portals. Considering this, I am sure they would appreciate this initiative as a genuine step in the right direction. IP LEX assembles section-wise summaries of key judgments and decisions across patents, designs, copyright, geographical indications, and trademarks into a single platform (Access it here. Or follow this: IP India website -> IP Judgments -> IP LEX). This would serve to quickly spot which ruling requires a deeper read.
I noted a few things when looking at the July and August compendiums. First, these are prepared by the Legal & Litigation Cell (LLC) under the CGPDTM’s office. So this means that the repository reflects what the Office considers to be key rulings and decisions. Second, across both months, the decisions highlighted are from 4 High Courts- Delhi, Calcutta, Karnataka, and Bombay- and one decision of the Copyright Office. So while the repository is not an exhaustive one, it is a selective compilation tracking notable rulings.
As of now, there is no official notification yet. But the CGPDTM, in his LinkedIn post announcing the repository, mentioned that both English and Hindi summaries would be available. This further opens up the IP ecosystem to a wider audience- even to people not versed in English. For now, I can see monthly compendiums are live in English. My assumption and hope is that the Hindi summaries are following close behind.
Moving forward, it would be interesting to see how this resource evolves and contributes to research. Till then, cheers to a brighter future for access to Indian IP developments!
👉 The launch of the dedicated IP Judgements section on the official IPIndia portal is a constructive initiative by the Office of the CGPDTM.
👉 The bifurcation between ‘administrative/quasi-judicial provisions’ handled by the executive registry and ‘adjudicatory provisions’ handled by civil courts is a fundamental structural feature of Indian IPR statutes because almost all IP-related enactments and statutes contain provisions falling into two categories: – one for facilitating ‘administrative provisions’ to be administered through the ‘IP office’, and another for ‘adjudicatory provisions’ to be determined through ‘civil court’.
👉 Therefore, it would be better for Office of CGPDTM to notify such judgments under the following two categories: >
(1) Judgments – delivered on ‘Administrative functions’ of the IP Office (i.e., in favour of or against the quasi-judicial orders passed by the respective IP Officials between stakeholders and the Department).
(2) Judgments – delivered on ‘Adjudicatory functions’ of the courts (i.e., infringement and passing off cases between two litigating parties).
👉 This will help both IP Officials and IP Stakeholders understand how to enforce their respective functions and liabilitie
P.C.N.Raghupathy,
Advocate
Chennai
Thanks for the comment Mr. P.C.N.Raghupathy. I also saw your comment under the CGPDTM post announcing IP Lex.
And I agree with you.
Right now, I opine that IP LEX is taking its first steps by releasing these as static monthly compendiums in PDF format. Through this post, my aim was to acknowledge that having something centralized is finally a step in the right direction, while hoping to see the platform mature over time.
Building on your suggestion, do you think that, moving away from static PDFs toward a searchable, tag-based filtering system, where summaries of the judgments can be filtered by judgments delivered on ‘Administrative functions’ of the IP Office and those delivered on ‘Adjudicatory functions’ of the courts, would make the database more functional?
Suggestions like yours will play a key role in pushing such initiatives to evolve into truly user-friendly tools for both practitioners and officials.
Let me know what you think and thanks again!
Best,
Maneesha