We’ve had a busy week at the blog this week, with several guest contributors and interesting discussions on our comments threads too. The week’s thematic highlight is Mathews three-part post analyzing Section 31D of the Copyright Act, and criticizing the order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in ordering the Registrar of Copyrights to exercise power under Section 31D. The first part of the post notes that the IPAB is supposed to function as an independent tribunal, which is…

This week’s thematic highlight was Sreyoshi’s post on the controversy brewing between Indian textile artists and label ‘People Tree’ and the high fashion brand Dior, on what appears to be the copying of the former’s block print and artwork by the latter. The post examines the controversy in light of potential copyright claims that the designers may have and further uses the example to discuss the protection of Traditional Cultural Expressions in the context of cultural appropriation, and why we…

The thematic highlight of the week was Prof. Basheer’s post on how Brazil and India have responded to issues of pendency in IP administration. Here, he points to two examples – Brazil’s radical idea to expeditiously approving pending patent applications through a ‘simplified process’, and India’s decision to deem 5,00,000 trademark applications as abandoned. Thankfully, the former decision has not been implemented yet, and latter decision has been stayed by the Delhi High Court and, as one of our readers…

Hello, readers! The first week of the year has been quite exciting for the blog, with our year-end review of 2017 in Indian IP, Prof. Basheer kicking off SpicyIP’s Interview Series, and Prashant breaking some major developments at the IPAB, along with some other interesting reads and news. Pankhuri curated our Top 10 lists for 2017 as a year in review post. The post highlights crucial developments in four fields – a) Top 10 IP Cases/Judgments (Topicality/Impact) b) Top 10 IP Cases/Judgments…

Merry Christmas to all our readers! We’ve had an exciting week at the blog, with some major developments breaking on the blog: The topical highlight for the week is Prashant’s post on IPRS’s re-registration as a copyright society. This comes in the aftermath of a long and bitter battle for the control over the copyright society and its functioning, polarizing artists and music labels. The registration is the outcome of a reconciliation between the two groups, forged particularly through the…