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]

Patent

Google’s new anti-troll strategy: streamlining the patent market or just beefing up its own portfolio?

by Balaji Subramanian May 4, 2015

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In the fight against patent trolls, Google seems to be pulling out all the stops with a new strategy – the Patent Purchase Promotion, announced on its Public Policy blog last week. The plan, essentially, is simple: Google creates a “streamlined portal” through which inventors (and pretty much anyone who holds the right to a patent) can submit patents they’re willing to sell, along with a price tag of sorts. Google then evaluates the submissions, buys the patents they want…

Innovation Overlaps in IP

Yale’s Innovation Law Beyond IP 2: Conference Highlights

by Balaji Subramanian May 1, 2015

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Over the last weekend of March, Yale Law School hosted the second edition of its Innovation Law Beyond IP conference. The conference offers a refreshing new perspective on issues across the board arising out of the interplay between innovation and the law. While traditional discourse has focussed itself largely on how IP law regulates and distributes the benefits arising out of innovation, the conference dealt with broader concerns, turning into a platform for extremely interesting ideas. Since technology policy is…

Kindling embers or scorching the earth? Amazon’s foray into crowd-assisted publishing [Part I]

by Balaji Subramanian March 25, 2015

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Earlier this month, Amazon opened its new Kindle Write On service to the public. Write On is a platform in which authors can release manuscripts to the public for free, and get feedback from the crowd on their work. The model is similar to the more established WattPad, and is seen as its direct competitor. The fact that Amazon is entering the self-publication arena is an interesting development, but it pales in significance when you realise what else the company…

Kindling embers or scorching the earth? Amazon’s foray into crowd-assisted publishing [Part II]

by Balaji Subramanian March 25, 2015

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In my previous post, I discussed the impact of two new services launched by Amazon – Write On and Scout – on the content market in general, and readers in particular. Here, I take a look at what these services mean for authors. The Write On Terms of Use are fairly straightforward, and clearly states that users do not, by posting content on the platform, transfer the intellectual property in their works to Amazon. Instead, they are assumed to grant…

Cutting off the nose to spite the face: Tamil film industry to halt movie releases to “combat piracy”

by Balaji Subramanian March 13, 2015

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In one of the most bizarre cases of copyright-maximalism we’ve encountered so far, it appears that the Tamil Film Producers’ Council has discovered a new solution to the problem of movie piracy: stop releasing movies altogether. At a meeting on Sunday, apparently, the Council came to the resolution that the only way to stop movie piracy was to halt movie releases for a three-month period. This is especially problematic, given that Tamil Nadu is one of the states that have…

Others

SpicyIP Weekly Review (2nd March – 8th March, 2015)

by Balaji Subramanian March 11, 2015

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SpicyIP Highlight of the Week! This week’s highlight was Mathews’ post on Utility Models, and the costs and benefits of setting up sui generis UM protection in a country like India. Mathews took on an article written by the former Registrar of Copyrights, Mr. Zakir Thomas, which summarily rejected the idea of any sort of protection for Utility Models, or Petty Patents. Mathews argues that UM protection merits serious consideration, at the very least, before it can be discarded. He then posits three possible arguments that could be…

Dost Dost Na Raha: Bollywood’s disillusionment with IP

by Balaji Subramanian March 5, 2015

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Within the entertainment industry, IP has historically served a two-fold purpose. In its most visible sense, it has been the backbone of content monetisation methods around the world. In fact, IP protection has been extended not only in the form of copyright for the finished works, but through trademarks for entertainment franchises seen as brands in their own right. In this post, I will also be discussing a second, more subtle interaction between IP law and the entertainment industry. IP…

Others

SpicyIP Weekly Review (2nd February – 15th February, 2015)

by Balaji Subramanian February 15, 2015

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SpicyIP Highlight of the Week(s)! Over the last fortnight, we’ve seen a comprehensive takedown of the Global Intellectual Property Center’s International IP Index. Shamnad took off from where he left in his Republic Day post with an opinion piece questioning the blind faith placed on IP rankings, and at a more fundamental level, in the belief that stronger IP laws foster innovation. He concludes that India’s marginal improvement on the rankings seem to stem from the simple expedient of making the right noises at…

Drug Regulation Patent

Delhi HC rules in favour of Gilead’s Sovaldi writ petition

by Balaji Subramanian February 9, 2015

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In a judgement dated 30th January 2015, Justice Rajiv Shakdher of the Delhi High Court upheld the contentions of Gilead Sciences regarding their “blockbuster” Hepatitis C Virus drug, Sovaldi. We’ve previously covered the controversy surrounding Gilead’s pricing policies with respect to Sovaldi (see Rupali’s two-part post here and here), but the issues raised in the current writ petition are only tangentially connected to the price of the drug. We’d also carried the news of Gilead’s rejection at the IPO, and…

Others Patent

Patently Unjust: How India’s IP laws prevent the poor from living healthy lives

by Balaji Subramanian February 5, 2015

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Access to Medicines (“A2M”) has been an active space for clashes within IP scholarship over the last year, with several landmark developments taking place in quick succession. Big pharma’s attempts to secure its bottom line against India’s so-called ‘lax’ patent regime have been well documented. Ever since the Novartis ruling, the debate has firmly established its importance in the Indian context, with multinational corporations pushing for introspection in our IP laws. (For more on the manner in which pharma giants…

Pro Patent { I have seen many cases where examiners raises mechanical objections when it comes to asking applicant to mention source and origin of biological resource & asking NBA permission... }
Murti Poolla { 1. I would pray where is the word “Research” defined in any of our Indian Acts. Also, in any Acts of Foreign Countries like US, UK and EU... }
Samrat { Well-noted. Instead of the moralistic position taken by the patent office, the more appropriate approach would be to ascertain whether the innovation is less harmful than the tobacco... }
Dr Kadam Avinash { Hi Kapilji! Can a licensee files for trade mark in the same on its own ? There is a Technology and IP lies with the institutions. There are... }
Ayushman Kheterpal { It might be interesting to consider whether "mode or principle of construction" or "mere mechanical device" exclusion in the Section 2 (d) of the Designs Act has the... }