Author name: Mathews P. George

Mathews is a graduate of West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata. He pursued LLM in 'IP and Competition Law' from the Munich Intellectual Property Law Centre (a joint collaboration of Max Plank Institute for Innovation and Competition, University of Augsburg, Technical University of Munich and George Washington University, Washington). His areas of practice include Technology Law in general (IPR, Competition Law, Data Protection Law etc) Corporate Law, Contract Law and Public Law (Constitutional Law and Criminal Law). He practises law and policy at both national and international levels. Presently, he is in Kerala. In addition to litigation before various courts in Kerala, he is also involved in various national and international policy and academic initiatives.

Is ‘Utility Model’ worth considering?

/ By / Innovation, Others

[*Long post] Mr. Zakir Thomas, former Registrar of Copyrights, penned an article in Deccan Herald criticizing ‘Utility Model’ (“UM”) which was, in fact, proposed by the recently released Draft National Intellectual Property Policy. According to him, “the draft policy believes that the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector has a large number of inventors having potential IP who can benefit only by introduction of a new law on UMs. This claim sounds appealing, but is not supported by any […]

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‘Jan Aushadhi’ – an umbrella brand for generic medicines

/ By / Others

Government of India launched ‘Jan Aushadhi’ campaign to provide quality medicines at affordable prices to the masses. [For ToI report, see here.] The Centre will procure medicines in bulk from public as well as private drug manufacturing firms and rebrand them under ‘Jan Aushadhi’. These medicines will be sold in the retail market at a competitive price, allowing consumers to buy cheaper, quality product from the government. The aforesaid ‘Jan Aushadhi’ initiative is similar to the initiative launched by Kerala

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Delhi HC on Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001

/ By / Plant Variety Protection

[*Long Post] The Delhi HC, in its recent judgment in Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Co and Anr v. Union of India and Anr, interpreted S. 15(3)(a) of Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001 (“Act”). This fairly well-written, coherent judgment, which was delivered by Justice Vibhu Bakhru, deals with certain interesting dimensions. As we haven’t dealt with many case laws pertaining to the Act especially involving technical aspects, I intend to deal with this judgment at length. My intention

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DEERE & CO. & ANR. v. S. HARCHARAN SINGH & ANR

/ By / Trademark

I would like to begin this post with a caveat. This post is PRIMARILY meant for non- IP practitioners. This post deals with a settled legal position viz, a trademark encompasses colour scheme / colour combination as well. The intention of this post is to help a non-resourceful, aggrieved person discern the broad strategy in building a prima facie case through a recently decided case law. On quite a few occasions, I have been asked to opine on the aforesaid

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A note of caution on ‘Make in India’

/ By / Others, Trademark

[*Long post] Given the media publicity, most of you must have come across the new flagship program of Narendra Modi Government – the ‘MAKE IN INDIA’ program. The program is designed to facilitate investment, foster innovation, enhance skill development, protect intellectual property and build best-in-class manufacturing infrastructure. At the outset, I would like to commend the way in which the program has been put across (or say, marketed) to the rest of the world. As I understand, Indian diplomatic missions were

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A ‘handy’ guide to those who are precluded from commercializing their theses by their Universities

/ By / Copyright, Publication

Consider this hypothetical fact situation: ‘A’, a student at university ‘X’, submits his thesis to the University. After the completion of the course, ‘A’ publishes his thesis as a book. University ‘X’ alleges copyright violation as the Terms and Conditions (“T&C”) of his admission assigns the copyright over the thesis with the University. T&C allows a student to reproduce the thesis for non-commercial purposes only. What is the legal tenability of this framework? On the face of it, University ‘X’

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Bom HC judgment on ‘honest concurrent use’

/ By / Trademark

Justice G.S. Patel of Bombay High Court, in his recent judgment in ITM Trust & Ors. V. Educate India Society, examined the ambit of ‘honest concurrent use’ in Trade Marks Act, 1999. Brief Facts The 1st Plaintiff, which is a public charitable and educational trust, controls and manages Institute of Technology & Management. It is the registered owner of word mark “ITM” which falls in various classes.  The Plaintiffs claim to be rendering services since 1993. When the Plaintiffs came

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Some thoughts on ‘posturing’ in international policy discourses

/ By / Geographical Indication, Others

[*Long post] IP-Watch recently carried a post titled ‘Is the Development Dimension of WIPO incompatible with its role of IP protection?’ dealing with the ongoing debates within WIPO. Though I don’t regard this post highly from an academic perspective, it does ignite some thoughts which I would like to pen down here. As the post notes, “The World Intellectual Property Organization is a successful United Nations agency if success is measured by its generated income and the number of international

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Guest Post: Groundless threat of Infringement proceedings- A Comparison spanning a few India IP Legislations

/ By / Copyright, Design, Geographical Indication, Overlaps in IP, Patent, Trademark

Shashank Mangal is a fifth year student of ILS Law College, Pune. He is the Head Student Co-ordinator of the IPR Cell. Further, he is the author of quite a few IP papers and guest posts in SPICY IP. In this post, he discusses ‘groundless threat of infringement proceedings’ from the perspective of some of the IP statutes. Groundless threat of Infringement proceedings- A Comparison spanning a few India IP Legislations It’s always the patentees’, authors’, registered proprietors’ and all

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Interim injunction application against release of “DHOOM 3” via satellite broadcast denied

/ By / Copyright

The Bombay High Court, in its recent judgment in Mansoob Haider v. Yashraj Films Pvt Ltd, refused to grant interim injunction against release of “DHOOM 3” via satellite broadcast. The judgment reaffirmed the principles laid down by the Supreme Court in R.G. Anand v. M/s. Delux Films & Ors.  This post shall focus on the principle of law involved in this case. At the outset, I would like to commend Justice G.S. Patel for his clarity of thought which is

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