Author name: Balaji Subramanian

Balaji is a third year student at NALSAR, Hyderabad. He is currently an editor of the Indian Journal of Intellectual Property Law. He is fascinated by technology law and IP law, and is an active member of NALSAR's Technology Law Forum. When he isn't doing law school things, he wanders the country looking for quizzes to participate in. He can be emailed at [email protected].

Behind the Scenes: The Making of the 2017 CRI Guidelines

/ By / Patent

(2,700 words, approximately ten-minute read.) In July this year, we covered the Indian Patent Office’s decision to revise its examination guidelines for Computer Related Inventions (“CRI Guidelines”). We noted that it was the third set of guidelines released in as many years – the guidelines were first issued in August 2015, suspended and kept in abeyance until February 2016, when a fresh set was issued which almost entirely contradicted its predecessor. We have dealt with the substance of the guidelines …

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Patent Office Reboots CRI Guidelines Yet Again: Removes “novel hardware” Requirement

/ By / Patent

Computer performance is measured in terms of the number of floating point operations per second, or FLOPS – today’s supercomputers typically clock in at several petaflops, or quadrillions of FLOPS. The Indian Patent Office’s performance with reference to Computer Related Inventions (CRIs) can be described by a similar term – flipflops. Not to be left far behind by developments in computing, the IPO also reached the quadrillion mark with its latest flipflop – amending the CRI Guidelines published in February …

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Delhi HC rules on VATability of trademark licences

/ By / Trademark

On 17 May, a bench of Ravindra Bhat and Deepa Sharma, JJ. of the Delhi HC delivered a common judgement in appeals and petitions filed by McDonald’s India, GlaxoSmithKline Asia, Bikanerwala Foods, and Sagar Ratna Restaurants against revenue authorities. The judgement sheds some much-needed light on the taxation of IP licences (albeit in the twilight of the current tax regime’s life). Facts McDonald’s, Bikanerwala and Sagar Ratna were trademark owners who licensed their brands out through franchise agreements. GSK Asia licensed out …

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Pharma Price Control and Policy Schizophrenia – III: Make Antitrust Great Again

/ By / Competition Law, Patent

Over the previous posts (here and here), I outlined the current state of pharmaceutical price control, and outlined inefficiencies inherent to the existing framework. Over the course of this post, I dive deeper into the harms caused by an ineffective price control regime, and outline more optimal policies to enhance access to drugs. Price control as a boogeyman The fact that price control in the drugs market today is entirely ineffective appears to be the subject of a careful cover-up …

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Pharma Price Control and Policy Schizophrenia – II: Cheating the consumer

/ By / Competition Law, Patent

Over the previous post, I summarised the events that led up to the current government’s ostensible decision to disband the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority and pave the way for a radical curtailment in the scope of pharmaceutical price control. While pressure groups such as the AIDAN, and other political agents (such as the Swadeshi Jagran Manch) have viewed the move as an egregious attempt to pull the rug from underneath the feet of patients, the question remains whether the DPCO was …

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Pharma Price Control and Policy Schizophrenia – I: Background and Context

/ By / Competition Law, Patent

Drug price control has been at the forefront of the Modi government’s electoral promises, which has been quick to claim “victories” on this front (such as the capping of stent prices earlier this year). Elsewhere, however, it has been noted that players within the government have expressed opinions against the expansion of price control, and have taken concrete action to strip the current price control mechanism of its bite. Over this post, I contextualise these events in the larger policy …

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Chetan Bhagat Injuncted Ex Parte in Plagiarism Suit

/ By / Copyright

A Bangalore civil court has issued an O.39 R.1 ex parte interim injunction against Chetan Bhagat and his publishers, restraining them from selling copies of his recent book One Indian Girl. According to Scroll, Anvita Bajpai, a Bangalore-based author, sued Bhagat alleging that the book was plagiarised from her short story Drawing Parallels, published as part of an anthology in 2014. Bajpai wrote a Facebook post detailing her allegation, while Bhagat posted a denial. Copyright law served as a useful way for a …

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Delhi HC Self-Corrects on Public Interest in Pharma Injunctions

/ By / Patent

Last week, we examined a new articulation of the public interest standard for the grant of interim injunctions in pharma patent litigation. In Bayer v. Ajanta, Justice Gauba of the Delhi HC held that commercial exports of prima facie infringing products covered by a non-worked Indian patent did not merit injunctive relief, on the ground that such exports generated employment and tax revenue for the state, and it was therefore in the public interest to allow them to continue. There are obvious …

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Bayer v. Ajanta: DHC Erects New Jurisprudence on Public Interest for Injunctions

/ By / Patent

On 20 December 2016, Justice RK Gauba of the Delhi High Court heard an interlocutory application under Order 39 Rules 1 and 2 of the CPC filed by Bayer Intellectual Property GmbH in a suit concerning IN225529 (3275/DEL/1998) against Ajanta Pharma Ltd. Bayer asserted that the patent covered vardenafil, a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction, and that Ajanta was manufacturing and selling the drug under its brand Valif. IN225529 The suit patent claims the compound, its derivatives, and pharmaceutical compositions containing …

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First ever TRIPS amendment enters into force to formalise Para 6 system

/ By / Patent

In previous posts, we have blogged about the so-called Paragraph 6 System, which reconciles an apparent tension between the competing objectives of protecting patent exclusivity and ensuring access to healthcare in Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Article 31 of the TRIPS governs uses of a patented invention without the authorisation of the patentee. In simple terms, Article 31 regulates the issue of Compulsory Licences by states party to the TRIPS. Article 31(f) clearly provides that CLs shall only be issued “predominantly for …

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