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].

Examining the rejection of Lee’s Saxagliptin CL application

/ By / Patent

Last July, an anonymous tip-off led us to Lee Pharma’s application for a Compulsory License against AstraZeneca’s Saxagliptin patent (IN206543). In that post, Swaraj and I covered the merits of Lee’s application extensively, before concluding that it was unlikely to succeed. In August, the IPO issued a prima facie finding rejecting the application under Rule 97(1) of the Patent Rules, 2003. Lee’s counsel requested a hearing, and were granted one on 15 December 2015 along with supplementary submissions on 29 […]

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Breaking news: IPO rejects Saxagliptin CL application

/ By / Patent

We’ve received news that the IPO has rejected Lee Pharma’s application for a Compulsory License against AstraZeneca’s patent for the anti-diabetic drug Saxagliptin. We’d covered the story earlier when the application was first filed last year, and again when the Controller of Patents issued a prima facie finding rejecting it in August. The rejection comes vide an order dated 19 January 2016 from the IPO, which can be found here. I will be posting a detailed analysis of the order (which, like

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (4-17 January, 2016)

/ By / Others

Highlight of the Fortnight The highlight of the past couple of weeks has to be Prof. Basheer’s post on copyfraud and collecting societies. He links the “IP excesses” committed by IPRS and PPL to the concept of “copyfraud”, or the serving of false and frivolous copyright infringement notices indiscriminately. After noting that the long arm of the law has nearly caught up with IPRS and PPL, he goes on to suggest that the way forward would be for a strict

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No rockin’ around this Christmas tree: IPRS v. Harsh Vardhan Samor

/ By / Copyright

The archives of this blog are punctuated with disturbing regularity by the notorious misadventures of an organisation that calls itself the Indian Performing Rights Society. In the latest in that series, we bring to you an order from the Bombay High Court in IPRS v. Harsh Vardhan Samor. Delivered ex parte on 22 December 2015, it restrains the owners of a Mumbai restaurant, He Said She Said, from performing musical works in IPRS’s repertoire at its premises, including at its

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (14-20 December 2015)

/ By / Others

Highlight of the Week This week’s highlight was our coverage of the Fourth Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest, for which SpicyIP was the media partner. In the lead-up to the event, we had Job Michael Mathew’s interview of Jayashree Watal, in which she spoke about TRIPS flexibilities, multilateral norm-setting and the role of institutions such as WIPO and the WTO when it came to global IP norms. Job also spoke to Prof. Basheer about the economics of generic

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GCIP Day 1 Session 2: Perspectives from Developing Countries

/ By / Innovation, Others, Overlaps in IP

This post is part of SpicyIP’s coverage of the Fourth Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest. The second session of Day 1 featured some extremely fascinating insights from across the developing world, adding fresh glosses to familiar themes in some cases, as well as radical new ideas from the bottom up in others. First up was Prof. Anil Gupta, co-ordinator of the path-breaking Honey Bee Network, which aims to connect small innovators (who seem to be all-pervasive

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Fair Standards Alliance launches, aims to promote FRAND licensing

/ By / Patent

Earlier this month, a group of small and large players on the telecoms market came together to launch the Fair Standards Alliance. The association looks promising, with industry heavyweights such as Cisco, Dell, HP, and Intel counting themselves as members. The FSA seeks to promote transparency in SEP licensing, and seeks to minimise royalty-stacking and the other problems that plague the telecoms industry is faced with today. The coalition’s self-stated goals are four-fold: to ensure that licenses are available at

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (23-29 November, 2015)

/ By / Others

Highlight of the Week This week’s highlight was Rupali’s post on the newly released draft trademark rules. She notes that provisions for free searches have been deleted, and that fees for most other filings have seen a substantial bump. While there are other new provisions, such as for sound marks, she concludes that nothing in the draft is aimed primarily at backlog elimination (unless the increased revenue is re-invested into TM office infrastructure) Thomas started off this week with some

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Exclusive rights to cultural heritage? That’s a stretch!

/ By / Others, Overlaps in IP

Last week, the internet was abuzz with news that students of the University of Ottawa had managed to shut down a free on-campus yoga class for fear of “cultural appropriation”. There have been several well-written responses to the whole thing, but this one from Eugene Volokh stands out from the rest. In three pithy paragraphs, Volokh identifies the root cause of the problem: the mindset that culture can somehow be treated as property, defined by the same “right to exclude” mentality

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (15-22 November, 2015)

/ By / Others

Highlight of the Week This week’s highlight has to be Rupali’s excellent post on the TPP, in which she mounts a multi-front attack on the agreement’s IP provisions. After pointing out the lack of transparency in its negotiation process, she highlights the problems surrounding patent term extensions, data exclusivity and patent linkage. I highly recommend reading the longer, original piece over at The Wire – it’s worth your time, trust me. Shruthi then put up a tidbit on Naik Naik

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