Author name: Aparajita Lath

Aparajita is an Assistant Professor at the National Law School of India, Bangalore. She graduated from the National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata and Harvard Law School (LL.M). She has worked at AZB & Partners and Trilegal. She was also a Student Fellow at the Petrie-Flom Centre at Harvard Law School.

Squawking over butter chicken: The mystery of the real master chef

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Image from here Butter chicken is one of the most famous Indian dishes available all over India and outside. This culinary delight is now the subject of an intellectual property rights dispute before the Delhi High Court. The INR 2 crore (USD 240,000) squabble is between the Gujrals, founders of the restaurant chain Moti Mahal (and Moti Mahal Deluxe), and the grandson of another one of the founders – Daryaganj. The Gujrals claim that their ancestor created the curry in […]

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AI and Copyright: Prompts and Intellectual Inputs This Time From China

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The Beijing Internet Court recently decided an interesting copyright infringement lawsuit concerning AI generated images (GW law translated version here). The court held that the defendant’s use (which was of a non-commercial nature) of an image generated using AI (created by the plaintiff using Stable Diffusion) violated the plaintiff’s copyright. The defendant was asked to apologise and pay the plaintiff CNY 500. The plaintiff created an image called ‘Tenderness Sent by the Spring Breeze’ using Stable Diffusion (below). The final

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Overview of the S. 3 landscape on patenting biotechnology inventions in India

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[This post has been co-authored with Rahul Bajaj. All views expressed are personal]. Market dynamics in the health and innovation space are making the biotech and life sciences sector an industry to watch out for. Trends such as the association of AI with life sciences, the growth of start-ups / non-traditional companies investing in life sciences, reduced spending on small molecule-drugs and promising new biotech treatments, indicate that windows of opportunity for investment in this sector are opening up. Unlike

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AI and copyright: More developments – human prompts are not ‘direct instructions’

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Image from here. Théâtre D’opéra Spatial. On September 5, 2023, as explained here, the US Copyright Office (USCO) issued an interesting decision in a copyright registration matter that involved AI-generated work. Previously, in the Thaler case, the US Copyright Office had refused to register an AI-generated work since the application named the AI-system as the author. This case revolved around the question of whether or not an AI system can be an author. The USCO ruled that it cannot since

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Have a break, have a KitKat: The chocolate or chanachur?

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Last month, the Calcutta High Court decided a trademark dispute between KitKat (chocolate coated wafers) and KitKat (chanachur – a savoury chickpea snack) after 23 years. For those who may not know, chanachur is a very popular street food/snack which Calcutta is famous for. Street vendors across the city make their own versions of chanachur mixed with fresh onions and spices. While chanachur can be bought from street vendors, it is also sold in packets in retail stores. In 2000,

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Jan Vishwas Bill 2023: Small businesses, competition and public health set up to lose?

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As reported, both Houses of Parliament recently passed the Jan Vishwas Bill, 2023 (JV Bill). This bill seeks to promote business by reducing penalties and decriminalising offences across 42 legislations. Major intellectual property rights laws – the Copyright Act, 1957, the Patents Act, 1970, the Trade Marks Act, 1999 and the Geographical Indications Act, 1999, have also been amended. We had discussed salient features of the JV Bill, 2022 along with its limitations in a post here. The major amendments

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Is Messenger RNA Patent-Eligible?

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While several intellectual property rights battles are being fought over the mRNA platform, a key question that remains unaddressed is whether and to what extent mRNA is patent eligible. Patent eligible subject matter refers to subject matter that is inherently suited for patent protection. Section 3 of the Patents Act, 1970 is the key section on “patent eligibility” and lists out what are not “inventions”. For mRNA, sections 3(c), 3(d), 3(i) and 3(j) are of relevance. Section 3(i) broadly excludes

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Vistara: The Limitless Possibilities of (Trademark) Expansion

/ By / Trademark

Vistara airlines recently sued Vistara Home Appliances (defendant/respondent) for trademark infringement and passing off before the Delhi High Court. A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court passed an order which will adversely impact businesses (especially small ones) going forward. Background Vistara is a Sanskrit word which means ‘limitless possibilities’ and is also the name of a now well-known airline service in India. Vistara airlines is a joint venture between TATA Sons Private Limited and Singapore Airlines Limited and operates

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Informal innovation: The re-emergence of ‘informal’ washing machines

/ By / Innovation

A topic close to this blog’s heart – informal innovation, recently made headlines. The Prime Minister of the UK awarded Navjot Sawhney with the Points of Light Award for his hand-cranked washing machines. This award recognises volunteers, charity leaders and community champions. Navjot Sawhney designed washing machines that are cranked by hand and do not use any electricity. Just like hand-churned  ice-creams, clothes are hand-churned in a tub, and come out clean. As per interviews given by Sawhney, the driving

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Future of mRNA and win-win for all: Why we need the government to disclose its collaboration agreement

/ By / Others, Patent

It is critical for the government to be forward-thinking. The Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, a government department,  is reported to have provided INR 70 to 100 crores to Gennova Pharmaceuticals for its development of an mRNA vaccine for Covid. The mRNA technology is a versatile platform technology that has been heralded as a new era in vaccines. The platform used by Gennova (saRNA – self-amplifying RNA) overcomes storage / temperature issues that affected previous versions of mRNA vaccines. Unlike

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