Adarsh Ramanujan

Adarsh Ramanujan

Adarsh is an independent counsel with offices in Delhi and Chennai. Before starting his own practice he spent considerable time with Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan at their New Delhi and Geneva offices. He obtained his B.Sc. LL.B. (Hons.) degree (Gold Medalist) from National Law University, Jodhpur and LL.M. degree from University of California, Berkeley. He is a qualified Patent Agent in India. A major portion of his time is spent practicing in the areas of IP & Technology Laws as well as in International Trade Law. He has however branched out into doing commercial litigation and arbitration work. His expertise also extends to regulatory laws such as environmental laws, biodiversity laws and cyber laws. Adarsh has taught patent law in NLU, Delhi, NLU, Jodhpur and at the CEIPI Institute (University of Strasbourg). He has authored or co-authored close to 30 publications on diverse topics, including on IP, WTO, constitutional law and international tax.

Patent

Trastuzumab Litigation: A Development from the Supreme Court Concerning Reliance (Setback or Inconsequential?)

by
Leave a Comment

On 17th December, a three-judge bench of Supreme Court of India in Genentech Inc. & Ors. v. Drug Controller General of India & Ors., set-aside the interim order of the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court dated 18.09.2019 and restored the earlier order of the single judge dated 25.04.2016. This relates to the biosimilar dispute concerning the drug ‘Trastuzumab’, between Genentech and Roche on the one hand, and Reliance, Mylan and Biocon on the other. The litigation saga has…


Read More »
Patent Plant Variety Protection

Patents and Plant Variety: Development from Brazil

by
Leave a Comment

In this post, I intend to provide my views on the recent judgment of the Superior Court of Brazil (the highest Court in Brazil) dated October 9, 2019 on the overlap (or non-existence thereof) between patent law and plant variety law. Disclaimer 1. I represent Monsanto in India in ongoing litigations on related and unrelated issues. Accordingly, I will not express any views on the position in India; 2. This post is based on a rough/uncertified translation of the judgment,…


Read More »
Biological Diversity

The New (Draft) Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) Guidelines – Part II

by
1 Comment

Continuing further on my comments on the new Draft ABS Guidelines, 2019. Definition of Conventional Breeding Under draft Regulation 12(d), accessing biological resources for “conventional breeding or traditional practices in use in any agriculture, horticulture, poultry, dairy farming, animal husbandry or bee keeping”, is exempt from approval.  This exemption can perhaps be traced to the exclusion of the said activities in Section 2(f) of the BDA. However, the regulations now add a qualifier that such activities are exempt only if…


Read More »
Biological Diversity

The New (Draft) Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) Guidelines – Part I

by
Leave a Comment

In this post, I intend to share my views on the draft “Guidelines on Access to Biological Resources and Associated Knowledge and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Regulations, 2019” (draft ABS Regulations, 2019). As many may be aware, the previous version of the same guidelines was issued in 2014, viz., ABS Regulations, 2014. The draft ABS Regulations, 2019, is intended to replace the earlier version and was put up for comments earlier this year. The topic is a little dated, but…


Read More »
Plant Variety Protection

Plant Varieties Act: Misunderstood and Misapplied (Part III)

by
Leave a Comment

In Part-I and Part-II, I had previously shared a summary of the Public Notice 01/2019 as well as my views on whether (and the extent to which) the said notice is ultra vires. In this Part-III, I intend to take the discussion forward with only one other point Why Only Single Cross Hybrids? Readers may recollect that in the previous posts, I referred to a pictogram to illustrate and differentiate a parent from a hybrid. Those images reflected a single…


Read More »
Plant Variety Protection

Plant Varieties Act: Misunderstood and Misapplied (Part II)

by
Leave a Comment

In Part-I of this three-part post, I provided a brief summary of the compound system of registration for parents and hybrids, created under the Public Notice 01/2019 of the PPV Authority. I had offered my view that the notice is ultra vires as far as it affects the term of protection for hybrids. I had ended it by noting prima facie that the notice may also appear ultra vires as far it links the eligibility criteria between parents and hybrids,…


Read More »
Plant Variety Protection

Plant Varieties Act: Misunderstood and Misapplied (Part I)

by
2 Comments

The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001 (PPV Act) is probably one of the least understood IP laws in this country. Arbitrary and ultra vires actions of the PPV authority certainly don’t help the cause, irrespective of whether the motive is right or wrong. In this case, I am referring to Public Notice 01/2019 published in May 2019 and clarified in a certain meeting with stakeholders in August 2019. To the best of my knowledge, there is…


Read More »