Author name: 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.

Retroactive Trademark Assignment Agreements: Another Slip in IPAB’s Decision in Eveready Industries v. Kamlesh Chadha?

/ By / Trademark

In my earlier post on the IPAB’s decision (dated September 22, 2020) in Eveready Industries India Ltd. v. Mrs. Kamlesh Chadha, I had introduced the case and covered the issue concerning the renewal procedure. In this post, I discuss another connected issue, concerning the validity of the assignment agreement executed in 2009 but with effect from 2005. Based on evidence, the IPAB concluded that this was a sham document and I don’t intend to get into an analysis of whether …

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Trademark Renewal Procedure: A Slip in IPAB’s Decision in Eveready Industries v. Kamlesh Chadha?

/ By / Trademark

The judgement of the IPAB (dated September 22, 2020) in Eveready Industries India Ltd v. Mrs. Kamlesh Chadha concerns original rectification petitions against two trademark registrations of the respondents – one for the word mark ‘Eveready’ and the other for a logo of Eveready, both in class 8 (screwdrivers, cutting pliers, hand tools etc.). The IPAB allowed the rectifications and directed the removal of the two marks from the Trade Marks Registry. This judgment is a highly fact-oriented and my …

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U.K. Supreme Court’s Landmark Ruling on SEPs: An Imperfect Solution, But Is There a Perfect One? (Part II)

/ By / Patent

[Disclosure: I represent/have represented clients on related and unrelated issues. Views expressed here are personal.] In Part I, I had summarised the U.K. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Unwired case. In this Part II, I share my critique of the judgement. While I have several comments, I have restricted myself to the principal ones for the present platform. Must a FRAND license always be global? At 1st glance, the U.K. Supreme Court’s judgment suggests that a FRAND license must always …

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U.K. Supreme Court’s Landmark Ruling on SEPs: An Imperfect Solution, But Is There a Perfect One? (Part I)

/ By / Patent

[Disclosure: I represent/have represented clients on related and unrelated issues. Views expressed here are personal.] In a recent landmark ruling, the U.K. Supreme Court (here) dismissed the appeals filed by implementers of technical standards, i.e. Huawei, ZTE, against standard essential patent (SEP) holders, i.e. Unwired and Conversant.  This is a well-known dispute and has previously been covered by this blog here, here, and briefly touched upon here. In this Part I, I will focus on summarising the ruling, reserving my …

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Yves Choueifaty v. Attorney General of Canada: An Interesting Development from Canada on Claim Construction and Patent Office Manuals

/ By / Patent

This time, I want to discuss recent judgement from the Federal Court of Canada – Yves Choueifaty v. Attorney General of Canada, 2020 FC 837 – available here. I found it interesting because it concerned the patentability of computer-related inventions (CRI) and addressed a situation where the Court found the Patent Office Manual to be erroneous. The case concerned the invention that claimed a computer-implemented method concerning investment portfolios. An in-depth assessment of the claims or the technology at hand …

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Of Paper Tigers and English: WTO Appellate Body Report in Tobacco Plain Packaging Dispute

/ By / Trademark

As a law school student, I once heard an accomplished practitioner of international law stating that “International law is English”. The WTO Appellate Body’s Report in the tobacco plain packaging dispute issued in June this year proves something more than this statement: “International law is convoluted English”. I had previously written about the WTO Panel Report in this dispute (or set of disputes), which are available here and here. Background To recollect, this set of disputes concerned Australia’s legislative measures …

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SpicyIP Tidbit : EBA’s Recent Ruling on Patentability of Plants and Animals : Any Impact on India?

/ By / Patent

[Disclaimer: I represent clients in India in ongoing litigation on related and unrelated issues. Views expressed here are strictly personal.] The IPKat recently reported that the Enlarged Board of Appeal operating under the EPC regime handed down its ruling in G 3/19 on the patentability of plants and animals developed from essentially biological processes. The Enlarged Board of Appeals has approved the Rule 28(2) recently inserted in Implementing Regulations of the European Patent Convention, by which products exclusively obtained by …

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US Supreme Court Upholds States’ Immunity from Copyright Infringement Suits : Is US in Violation of the TRIPS Agreement?

/ By / Copyright

Last month, the US Supreme Court issued its judgement in an interesting case involving sovereign immunity for copyright infringement. This was the case of Frederick L Allen v. Roy A. Cooper, III, Gov of North Carolina et al. The copyrighted work in question involved the videos and photos taken by the plaintiff concerning the shipwreck of the Queen Anne’s revenge. The plaintiffs sued the State of North Carolina when it published some of these videos and photos online and the …

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Patent Statistics: A Clue towards the Underlying ‘Momentum’ and ‘Acceleration’

/ By / Innovation, Patent

Many may have followed the press release by the WIPO earlier this month declaring that in 2019 China had surpassed the United States to become the largest filer of international patent applications for the first time. That is, number of the PCT applications originating from China is the largest in the world as on 2019. PCT applications originating from China were 58,990, which represents a 11% growth from the previous year and almost 2400% increase from 2005. The number of …

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Delhi HC Allows Genentech’s Internal Expert to Inspect Reliance’s Documents in Trastuzumab Suit: Dilution of Confidentiality Club?

/ By / Drug Regulation, Patent

On 2nd March, a Single Judge of the Delhi High Court in the case of Genentech Inc. and Ors. v. Drugs Controller General of India and Ors. passed an order, which effectively allowed Genentech’s in-house employee/expert to inspect the documents placed on record under a Confidentiality Club. This is the Trastuzumab litigation involving Reliance. This litigation saga has been covered on several occasions including here, here, here, here, here and here. When I first heard of this order, I was …

Delhi HC Allows Genentech’s Internal Expert to Inspect Reliance’s Documents in Trastuzumab Suit: Dilution of Confidentiality Club? Read More »

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